


More Things Move than Blood

by signalbeam



Series: the lion of desolation and other stories [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Action, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Sex, Diplomacy, Established Relationship, F/F, Gen, Not so much redemption as 'an attempt at', Plot With Porn, Politics, Post-Canon, Redemption, Sex Toys, Tragic Sex Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-03-19 04:44:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3596811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Kuvira’s invasion, Korra and Asami's work lives take place in nearly separate spheres: Korra has her pile of Earth Kingdom problems, Asami has Future Industries.  </p><p>When Raiko holds a conference to consolidate support for the new Earth Confederation, Asami finds herself drawn into Korra's Avatar work after after Korra goes missing. To find her, Asami goes to Kuvira, the last person she wants to see again, for help. Whether Kuvira feels like helping is another story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some fun with Raiko and Kuvira.

The address on the envelope was Air Temple Island, but a member of the White Lotus had waited outside the door of Asami’s apartment to ensure Kuvira’s letter would get to her. Korra nearly bent him into a wall, but stopped herself just in time. 

“Who even let you in?” Korra said, lowering her glider staff. The guard shrugged his shoulders, looking the usual blend of White Lotus smug and furtive. “You could have just left it in the mailbox.” 

“Kuvira said she didn’t want it to get lost.” 

“You know she’s your prisoner, right?” 

“Avatar Korra does us a great kindness in reminding us of our duties,” he said, bowing with a flourish. Ugh. 

She waited for the guard to get in the elevator before opening the envelope. It was a short letter, barely more than a page. Then she tucked it into her bag and took the stairs up to the roof. 

It was mid-morning, spring warming into summer. Construction had already started for the day. The morning rush was over, but the streets remained lively, cars squeezing down narrow streets, chickens squawking in their cages, hawkers calling passersby to their stalls. Air Temple Island in Yue Bay flashed crimson with flying airbenders, recently returned from the Fire Nation on a diplomatic trip. And far away, past the bay and in the ocean, was Kuvira’s tower. Her prison. 

_Avatar Korra, it has been some time since you’ve come to visit me. I realize I have betrayed the trust you’ve shown me and that you have no reason to come see me again after what I’ve done. I regret it, I truly do. You showed weakness and I took advantage. Believe me, I was sorry the second I struck you. If you are still angry, I understand, but know this: I am ready to accept any punishment you have for me._

The way the letter was written, you could have mistaken it for a challenge. She didn’t feel the anger or coldness she had expected to feel. She wanted to go to Kuvira’s cell right away, even though she knew Kuvira didn’t want to take punishment. All she wanted was to be given forgiveness. 

It had been a few months since she last went to see Kuvira. She couldn’t have gone back to the prison angry. Even knowing what she had to do, knowing she had to sit down and talk to Kuvira, she couldn’t stand the idea of returning without another chance. 

She tucked the letter into her bag and spread out her glider. She was going to be late. 

*** 

By the time she glided in, the train from Zaofu was due in ten minutes. The police had already pushed the public off platform six and eight. Asami was on platform six inside the clear zone, swarmed by red-suited Future Industries interns and assistants. “Yes,” she was saying. “Right. No, give me that. Cabbage Corps makes those batteries. You’ll blow the whole thing up. Korra!” She broke away from the bunch of them, or tried to. One of them held onto her sleeve until she turned around and stamped a document with her seal. 

Korra pushed through the police guard. “Hey,” she said, bouncing up to her toes to kiss Asami. “I thought you weren’t meeting them at the train station.” 

“I’m supervising the dome project, remember? It was just a quick ride down the canal.” 

“That explains why you smell like the sewers. I was just kidding!” she said when Asami sniffed at her arm. “You smell great. Really.” 

“I was hoping I could say hi to Suyin and—” 

“Stamp, please!” an assistant said, sticking a sheaf of papers between them. 

“—Baatar before they came to the factory, but Raiko looks even tenser than usual. Knowing him, he has everything planned to the minute.” 

“Did he schedule a time to pull out his hair?” Korra said, crossing her arms. “I overheard their phone call last week. He tried to make her give back one of her meteorites because it was originally found on United Republic lands.” 

“Be nice,” Asami said. “I don’t like dealing with him, either, but he has the Republic’s best interests at heart. … I can’t believe I’m voting for him again.” 

“Ms. Sato, if you could put your seal on this…” 

Asami rolled her eyes but took the contract offered to her. “You go on. Suyin and the rest of the Beifongs are arriving ahead of their R&D team. Are you still going to Raiko’s dinner?” 

“I don’t think I have a choice,” Korra said glumly. 

“Stop by the dome factory once you’re done,” Asami said. “I have just the thing for you. You’ll look great. It’s pretty tight, too, so you won’t be able to bend any diplomats into the ground again.” 

“First of all, we were on a boat. I didn’t bend anything. He _fell_.” 

Asami kissed her again, then sent her off. She was swarmed by interns and assistants in seconds. 

She made her way over to platform eight. Raiko was with his wife, a cluster of reporters, and Lin. 

“Where have you been?” Raiko said, meeting her halfway. “I needed you here half an hour ago.” One of the photographers called for a picture. Raiko turned to them with his stern smile and said, “Please, there will be plenty of time for that later.” Then he turned his back to them and walked further down the platform, looking back and jerking his chin forward. 

They stopped just behind the first of the arching supports, which block most of the photographers’ shots. He stood with his back to the cameras, drawing himself to his full height. Even now, she thought angrily, he was putting her on the spot. Although if the paparazzi took a shot, it’d just be ‘Avatar blows her top—again?!’ 

“What do you need this time?” she said. 

“We need to come up with a plan for dealing with Suyin Beifong. I won’t have her making a fool of the city.” 

“A plan for _what_? She’s just coming to visit Future Industries, dance at the gala, and talk about joining the Confederation. At least, that was the plan _I_ heard.” 

“I told you before, the terms of Zaofu joining the Confederation are still under negotiation. She’s refusing to advance discussions until we return Kuvira to Zaofu.” 

Deep meditation. She tried to think of the fishing trip she took with Raiko a few weeks back. Fishing. Tenzin had stood between them nearly the entire time, but when he wasn’t, they had enjoyed the silence of the mutually irked. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” 

“The news came by telegram after she was already on the train.” His moustache seemed to gleam with triumph. Incredibly, he was actually in the right this time. “We don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, but we can both agree that Zaofu needs to join the Confederation for it to succeed. I don’t know what game she’s playing, but she considers you a friend. You can put that to good use.” 

“My friendships aren’t tools,” Korra said. 

He sniffed and returned to his wife’s side. Korra scowled at his back, then remembered the cameras. She went to Lin. No one liked taking pictures of Lin, even though she was naturally photogenic. She had a long history of breaking cameras with her cables. 

“I bet this is exciting,” Korra said. “Su hasn’t been in town since Varrick and Zhu Li’s wedding. Can you believe they went on a six month long honeymoon?” 

“Go away. I’m busy,” Lin said. 

“You’re just standing there not talking to anyone!”

“I’m on security duty. My relationship with my sister has no part in me being here.” 

“Really?” she said. “Wow. I’m convinced. Did you hear about—” 

“No. And I’m not interested. My concerns are about protecting the city and its people, not getting wrapped up in international drama.” Lin gave Korra a considering look, and then patted her shoulder gruffly. “Wouldn’t want your job, kid.” 

The train arrived, shooting past them in a blur of green and steel. Korra hurried back to Raiko’s side. A breathless hush fell over the news crowd, eager for Suyin’s grand entrance. The doors opened. Suyin and Baatar stepped out, smiling and waving. The cameras immediately went wild—at least until Huan came out and glared at all of them. 

“Suyin,” Raiko said, stepping forward first. “It’s so good to see you again.” 

“Agreed,” she said. “I’m impressed by the work your people have done with the city. From what I saw, the residential districts are almost completely repaired. Buttercup, you’re looking wonderful as usual. And Korra! I’m so glad you’re in the city right now. I was afraid you might be away doing business in the spirit world or with the Earth… whatever they’re calling themselves these days.” 

“Confederation,” Raiko snapped. “It’s the Earth Confederation. Avatar Korra and I hope you’ve reconsidered joining.” 

“We can talk about that later. Korra, where’s Asami? She said she would be meeting us here.” 

“She’s waiting for your R &D people on platform six,” Korra said. “I can go get her.” 

“That’s all right. Baatar, honey, Asami’s waiting for you inside. Don’t spend too much time staring at the architecture. The boys…” Wing and Wei had gotten a hold of Lin. Wing punched Lin in the arm and a second later, found himself flat on his back, courtesy of a chunk of displaced earth. Suyin waved at Lin; Lin glowered. “That Lin,” she said. “Always keeping people in line.” 

*** 

They waited in the station until Heibing, Shazo, and the other states arrived as well. There was a quick photo op at the station. Then they crammed themselves into a car and were driven to the state hall in tense silence. They didn’t stop for pictures at the state house, although flashbulbs went off as they entered. This wasn’t the first big meeting Raiko had invited her to help with the Earth Confederation, but it was the first time she would be facing Suyin not as an ally or a mentor, but an opposing party. 

She cracked her knuckles. Raiko shot her a dark glare, then sat at the conference table. The room could have easily hosted delegations from the entire world. The long table had been pushed aside in favor of a smaller one. A map was pinned beneath the glass cover. Someone had marked Zaofu and the United Republic with green and red dots. 

“Let’s make it clear,” Suyin said. “Zaofu has no intention of joining the Earth Confederation. Our independence is part of our identity.” 

“Zaofu is just one city,” Raiko said. “Think about the future. Zaofu may need the Confederation’s support if you become incapacitated, and the terms won’t be as favorable without you there.” 

“Baatar and I have already discussed succession. We have many people who share our vision in Zaofu. A vision that we know the Confederation doesn’t share.” 

“That’s not true,” Korra said. “Wu has been working hard to make the Confederation a modern state.” 

“I used to think uniting the Earth states was for the best, but now I’m not so sure. If you ask me, the only reason people want to unite the Earth states is status quo. Generations of megalomaniacs maintained the Earth Kingdom to exploit the land and its people for their own gain, and nothing good ever came of it. Kuvira is a good example of what happens when you try to force unity.” 

“Su, I haven’t been forcing anything on anyone,” Korra said. 

“I know your intentions are good, Korra. And if Wu could deliver what he promised, then I’d be happy to join. But our disagreements are based on the distribution of the Empire’s railroad, the border redistricting of our allies, and the conditions that forbid us from prosecuting or even touching the shameless profiteers who call themselves ‘nobles.’ A Confederation on those terms is not agreeable to any of us.” 

“Can we do anything to change those?” Korra said. 

“No,” Raiko said. “We can’t have Zaofu join the Confederation under different conditions than the other states. The whole point of it is to make it equal for all members. We’d have to bring all the other states together, renegotiate the terms, have the new terms approved by a majority of members—” 

“Things like that is exactly how the Earth Kingdom ended up falling so far behind! I won’t have my city dragged into the same kind of bureaucratic death trap that led us into this situation in the first place.” 

“Your arguments are just a way of obfuscating your stubborn selfishness!” Raiko said. 

They went on for a while longer before Korra kicked the ground, shaking the table and floor. “Enough!” she said. “We’re not getting anywhere on this. Move onto something you can agree about, or I’m ending the talk for today and no one’s getting anything.” She got to her feet and stayed on them until Suyin and Raiko sat down again, this time on opposite ends of the table. “All right,” she said. “Let’s try this again.” 

*** 

Korra arrived in the Future Industries workshop by air, through the large, open bay. Her arrival went unnoticed: the workers were busy with the Zaofu engineers, and Asami, Zhu Li, Baatar, and Varrick were standing around a drafting table in the back of the factory. She snuck up to the rafters to watch the proceedings. Baatar looked overwhelmed, Varrick exuberant, Zhu Li irritable, and Asami as though she was seriously considering starting a new career as an alcoholic. 

She couldn’t see more than the top of Asami’s head from here, but she could picture Asami entirely in her mind’s eye: her ponytail over her shoulder, falling across her breast in a black wave, the dusty blue light darkening the shadows beneath her furrowed brow as she made her point. In meetings with investors and Raiko, Asami could be considerate and accommodating to the point of near insanity, but around her fellow engineers, she was someone else entirely. Once, on a visit, Korra had watched Asami steer an engineer to a corner, point out eight violations in the biplane he had just signed off on, and demoted him on the spot. Then she turned around, pushed her bangs out of her face, and rejoined Korra with a smile. 

The four of them down there were working on a new dome design for Zaofu, using scrap metal from Kuvira’s weapon. Beauty and greater offensive capability, that was the plan. From the sound of it, they couldn’t agree on the construction: whether to forge each segment from a single sheet, or to build it in pieces and weld it together. 

“What was that?” Zhu Li said suddenly, glaring straight at Korra. Oops. Korra ducked behind a column. Below, a conversation and four engineers staring up at the ceiling. Asami excused herself from the table and went up to the manager’s office on the second floor. As Korra crossed the high beams, she heard Zhu Li mutter, “I swear I saw someone… a spy?” and reach down to her side, as though to pull something out. 

Korra moved faster, slipping past the open door just seconds after Asami entered. She saw a flash of blue light and fell to her knees, arching her back. Asami’s gloved hand soared over her chest, freezing in place just over Korra’s face. 

“Oh!” Asami said. The lightning faded. “You’re here already—have we been arguing for that long?” She helped Korra straighten up, shut the door behind them, and closed the blinds. 

“Don’t worry, it’s just past three,” Korra said. Now they were both slapping the walls for the light switch like a pair of lost rabbit seals. “Who did you think I was?” 

“An… industrial spy? Zhu Li always sounds so authorative when she says things.” 

“The bay doors are wide open!” 

“You’re right,” Asami said breathlessly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

Their hands crossed over the switch at the same time. Asami slid her hand up Korra’s arm, took her by the chin, and stepped forward for a kiss, lipstick waxy and mouth slick, fingers smoothing their way into Korra’s hair. She pulled, just enough to force Korra to exhale sharply and let go of the wall, too. Then they were making out, hands everywhere and still not enough contact. 

Korra stroked Asami’s back, meaning to reach down to cop a feel; but then her shoulder pushed against the switch and the lights were on again, exposing them both. Asami’s cheeks were pink, her chest heaving, and jacket half undone. Korra was tempted to turn the lights off and pin Asami against that poor manager’s desk again, but sooner or later Zhu Li or Baatar or worse, Varrick, would come for them. She kissed Asami one more time, then said, “Later?” 

Asami nodded, readjusting her jacket. “How did the meeting with Raiko and Su go? Bad?” 

“Is it that obvious?” 

“If it had gone well, you would’ve barged to brag instead of sneaking around in the rafters. Was Raiko worse than usual?” 

“He’s always bad,” Korra said. “Su’s not budging on the Confederation thing, but she wants… I shouldn’t say it. You’ll be upset.” 

“Not with you,” Asami said. “Tell me.” 

“She wants Kuvira sent back to Zaofu.”

Asami reapplied her lipstick using the glass face of the clock. She pressed her lips together, then said, “Good.” 

“You’re okay with it?” Korra said, raising her eybrows. 

“I’ve told you, Kuvira is your prisoner, not mine. I want her as far away from us as possible. Especially after what she did to you.”

“Su wants her to walk free in Zaofu, the way she has Baatar Jr. walking around.” Asami let out an incredulous little laugh. “I know! I’m going to the prison tomorrow morning.” 

“Are you sure?” she said. “You could send someone else.” 

“It’d be best if I go,” Korra said. “I’ll be careful.”

Asami grimaced, and looked away. “Be safe, okay?” 

On the other side of the door, she heard Varrick say, “Zhu Li, I am fetching my own my special ray gun.” 

“Give us a minute!” Asami said. She opened up the closet in the manager’s desk and took out a plain brown bag. “Here’s your dress. I wish we had the time for you to change in it here, but Varrick might break the door down if we take much longer.” 

“Are you sure you can’t come with me?” Korra said. 

“I don’t have the time,” she said. “This is the only time where all of us can work on the domes. But I’ll be there for the gala. I’ve already picked something for it. You’ll like it.” She kissed Korra’s forehead, and showed her to the door. 

Korra opened the door just in time to come nose-to-nose with a giant shoulder-mounted cannon. She pushed it aside. “Hi, Varrick.” 

“Korra!” Varrick said. “Boy, is it great to see you again. Hey, your haircut’s looking fab, but you know what would be even more fab? My latest—”

“Bye, Varrick!” she said, and flew out on the glider. 

*** 

_Avatar Korra, it has been some time since you’ve come to visit me…_

Now she was in Asami’s apartment, getting ready for the dinner party. The side of her hand brushed against the thin scar on her stomach. She gave it a brief glance, then at the letter open on Asami’s bed, then kept working her way into the dress. 

The last time she went to Kuvira’s prison had been early spring. Bright and crisp, without any of the sun’s warmth. 

Kuvira’s prison was in a sheltered cove hidden by trees and other greenery. She was housed in a tower the color of cooked duck fat. Future Industries had developed a new material specifically for containing skilled earthbenders, like porcelain but tougher and nearly impossible to bend. 

She flew to the cove with lunch from one of Bolin’s favorite takeout places, and brought it up to Kuvira’s cell. It was routine at this point. For the first few months of Kuvira’s imprisonment, their visits were done in the white room downstairs with guards posted at every entrances and more behind the one-sided mirror. At least in the cell it was just the two of them and whatever bad mood Kuvira was in. 

Kuvira’s cell had two windows: a large one facing the guards, and another facing the sea and sky. She was reading a book on her bed, and didn’t get up when Korra came in. On Korra’s request, the guards brought in a collapsible wooden table, which she put next to the bed, and a wobbly chair. 

“Best Ba Sing Se-style in the city, or so Bolin says,” Korra said. She wrestled with the cartons a bit; each individual container had a tiny wire that could be flipped up to carry, but always seemed to get stuck on the edge of the box at the crucial moment of deployment. “What are you reading?” 

“ _The Scenery and Monuments of Ba Sing Se_.” 

“I’ve read that,” she said. They were piling food into their separate rice containers, eyes down on the meat and vegetables and rice. “I didn’t think it’d be your thing.” 

“I despise it. People like those writers refused to see the true state they lived in: frivolous, repressive, and cruel. Ba Sing Se was rotten long before Hou-Ting.” 

“Well, yeah. You don’t have to tell me that.” 

“I read it to remind myself of what I fought for. What I should have fought for. But the Avatar would have stopped me no matter what. Isn’t that right?” 

“Seriously?” Korra said, glaring over a clump of bitter broccoli leaves. “Do you really want to have this fight again? You weren’t doing it for the people when you set up the Earth Empire, we both know that. Why is it—ugh! Forget it. Do you want to eat or not?”

“You don’t know what I was doing it for,” Kuvira said with a friendly, pointed smile as she piled lizard pig onto her rice. “Not the whole reason.” 

“Have you tried meditating instead? It’d probably be better for you than rereading books you hate.” 

“I don’t waste my time doing nothing.” 

They ate in silence for a while. Then Kuvira asked for a pai sho board from the guards. They put the game on Kuvira’s bed and played eight games, four with Zaofu rules, four with the rules Korra had learned from Asami. By the time they finished, the score was 4-3-1, in Kuvira’s favor. 

“Next time we use those Fire Nation rules, I’ll crush you,” she said as Korra folded up the board. Her face was pink in the evening light, her face quivering with excitement. “Just like I’ve beaten you every time we’ve met. What’s wrong, Avatar? Girlfriend not teaching you enough? I thought you said she was a great teacher.” 

“She is. I’ll have a few new moves ready for you next time.” 

“I hope she’s as good as you say she is. Otherwise the next time we play, you’ll never want to touch a pai sho board again.” 

“Sure,” she said and rolled her eyes. 

Kuvira picked up the empty takeout boxes they had left on the folding table and stuck them into the paper bag Korra had brought them in. She held onto the bag while Korra returned the pai sho board and furniture. She held onto it even when Korra extended her hand out to take it back. 

“Don’t go yet,” Kuvira said. 

After that, her memory became imprecise. Kuvira had said that Heibing shouldn’t be in the Confederation anyway and that it should be cut off from any and all aid. But Zaofu and Shazo, some small state Korra had only ever seen on maps, should be forced to join at any cost. Korra should be more aggressive in her recruitment of those two important states. 

Well, great to know you still have opinions! But she didn’t take policy points from imprisoned dictators. She had checked the clock through the glass window. She had to leave, but she’d be back next month. She’d have to skip their next meeting to help settle some spirits down in one of the republics. So you think that the spirit world is more important than this one—this world, the one they lived in, the one—the one you invaded and nearly destroyed? She had to go now, it was getting dark… She picked up her glider and took the bag from Kuvira. Tried to. Let go, she said. 

Something moved inside the paper. She knew, immediately, that it was Kuvira’s doing. She blasted Kuvira into the wall with air, then fell forward, too lightheaded to keep standing. She was aware that her side had been pierced by something, but what? She clasped her hand to her side, but blood kept pushing it away, spurting out of her body in swift, red sprays. A wet spot grew on her back. Blood there, too. She felt for metal with her bending and found it: the little carrying handles for the takeout, twisted together into a knife. 

“Kneeling at my feet again!” Kuvira said. She clung to the wall and trembled when Korra met her eyes, from fear or disbelieving triumph. “It’s the same every time we meet.” 

The door slammed open. A guard pinned Kuvira to the wall with ice. Another one slammed his hand into Korra side, pressing down. Hurry, he shouted to the waterbender. I’m losing her! 

_If you are still angry, I understand, but know this: I am ready to accept any punishment you have for me._

She knew why Kuvira had attacked her. Isolation made people desperate. And unable to escape, Kuvira had tried to break herself from the one relationship to the outside world she had left. 

Korra gave Kuvira the best she could do: safety, shelter, a chance to think and repent. She knew, when she gave Kuvira to the White Lotus instead of the United Nations or the Confederation, that she was assuming responsibility for her wellbeing, both mental and physical. But why did that mean she had to forgive Kuvira for every one of her misgivings? Forgive and forgive and forgive, like someone’s beleaguered mother, when it wasn’t working? 

*** 

The dinner was at The Capital House Restaurant. She arrived at the lobby early, though not early enough to avoid Raiko’s glare. Suyin broke away from her group of admirers to get to Korra. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Korra said. They embraced, warmer and more intimate than their quick greeting down at the station. 

“Look at you! You look happy.”

“Thanks. I am. Really happy.” She could feel that pink smile seizing her face, and shook her head from side to side to make it go away. “So, what were you hoping to talk about?” 

“I wish we could have had a chance to talk about Kuvira before Raiko ambushed you with it. Let me make my case. You think giving Kuvira to Zaofu is an insane proposition—but I can’t see how keeping her locked up is going to improve things, either. She’ll rot in that jail without doing anything to heal what she’s done. If you let me have her, she stands a good chance of being rehabilitated.” 

“She’s in prison for her own protection, not just as a punishment.” 

“Protection? Against who?” Suyin said. She stood with an archer’s poise, her body concentrated and tight. “Who has she hurt in Zaofu more than me? No one will dare lay a hand on her. Not as long as I live.” She untensed in one little motion, a toss of her head, as though to displace the band of metal she wore on her forehead. “I haven’t forgotten how kind you were to let Baatar Jr. return to Zaofu.” 

“It was the right thing to do,” Korra said. “It’s not as though you let him back without conditions, either.” 

“For him, spending the rest of his life rebuilding the things he helped destroy is a punishment. Some people would kill to have his job.” Suyin smiled wryly, and let out a long breath. Korra had heard Baatar Jr. lived in a small apartment a half hour’s walk from the Beifong compound. Every morning he was taken to his workshop by armed guards. He’d work until evening, and then was brought back home. She had also heard that Baatar Jr. occasionally returned to the compound, morose and in need of his mother’s love. “I want a meeting with her,” Suyin said. “Raiko won’t let it happen, but I know the prison is controlled by the White Lotus. Please, Korra. I’m asking you as a friend.” 

“I’m going to the prison tomorrow,” Korra said. “I’m sitting on some meetings with Raiko tomorrow, too. Let me see what I can do.” She was about to say her goodbyes so she could go meet with some of the delegates from another state—she had made a million trips over there at the beginning of the year, but it looked like things were calming down now—when she remembered talking to Kuvira in the cold winter; her chapped lips, the bitter ache of her words. “There’s one thing I wanted to know. Did you think of Kuvira as family?” 

Suyin’s face was calm. She didn’t even blink. “Who can say. She wasn’t the only orphan I found rolling around in one pit or another, but she was the most talented and the most driven. If you mean whether I cared about her, then the answer’s yes. I care about her deeply. She was my best student, and special to me in a way that no one else was. She’s part of my clan. But if you meant if I see her as family—then no. I’ve never seen her that way.” 

The lobby was filling up with more arrivals. They moved towards the center of the floor, separate parties calling for them both, their conversation over. 

“I’m sorry,” Suyin said as they moved apart from one another, “if that’s not the answer you were hoping for.”


	2. The Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several regrettable meetings. With a surprise cameo.

At night, after the dinner, she came back home in a taxi to avoid ruining the dress. The lights were still on in Asami’s study. She took the stairs up and opened the door to the apartment as quietly as she could. Asami was at her desk, holding up one design to the desk lamp, and then another. She laughed when Korra buried her face into her neck. Her skin was colder than she expected, still smelling of the night air and grease. 

“Did you just get back?” Korra said. 

“About twenty minutes ago,” Asami said. “We got over the construction problems, but now Varrick wants these magnetic… oh, it’s so dumb, Korra. I think his magnet train will be brilliant if he can make it work, but magnet domes are never happening.” 

“Magnet _domes_?” 

“You should have seen Baatar’s face when he kept bringing it up. I never knew he could get angry.” She spun around in the chair to face Korra. “You look even better than I thought. How’d you like the dress?” 

“Not as much as you do right now, I bet.” She did a slow turn, moving just out of range of Asami’s reach, then bent over Asami again, kissing her deeply. “Haha! You’re not used to being on this side of it, are you?” 

“What? Oh—I don’t do that!” she said as Korra tossed her bangs out of her face and batted her eyelashes. 

“Mmm, Ms. Sato,” she said, putting her hand on Asami’s chest. A jolt went through her when Asami stopped laughing and smiled, biting down on her own lip. Korra slid it until the heel of her palm rested just above the waistband of her pants. “I bet you’ve been working a long, hard time. Do you need to have a nice time with a gal who’s ready to party?” 

“I don’t know how my girlfriend’s going to feel about that,” Asami said. 

“Oh, your girlfriend. Whatever. I’m not scared of the Avatar. What’s she going to do, pull my hair? I’d rather have you yanking on my noggin, you, uh, sexy machine maker.” 

“‘Sexy machine maker?’ We’re called engineers.” 

“I know that!” She took her hair out of the bun. “I’m not as good at the talking thing as you are.” 

“Just say what you’re feeling,” Asami said. She tugged Korra into her lap and ran her hand along her hip. “What you want, where you want things to go…” 

After all those talks and meetings and that awful dinner, dictating the course of the night—or at least, her next orgasm—didn’t sound bad at all. She ground down into Asami’s lap, thin silk rubbing against Asami’s canvas work pants, then kissed her. Asami’s hand came up to cup her breast, teeth hard against Korra’s shoulder. Korra moved them up to her waist. “Keep them here until I tell you to move them.” 

“Do I have to?” she said. “I’m really good with my hands.” 

“Kiss me again, and we’ll see.” A few minutes later, breathless, shaking her head to get some sense back into it: “Wow. Uh, wow. Yeah. Hands. That sounds great. Do you still have that toy, the…” 

Asami spun them around in the chair so she could open the middle drawer of her desk. “I have a rubber one and the glass one and…”

“The gla… you keep them in the _tax drawer_?” 

“No! I knew you were going to be coming back and I thought I’d… prepare the field.” Her thumb played with Korra’s bra strap. “I’ve been thinking about this since you came to the factory.” 

Korra hiked her dress up all the way to the hip, then arranged herself so she was kneeling over Asami’s legs, wrapping her arms around Asami’s shoulders and praying that her knee wouldn’t slip and send her crashing to the floor. “Warm me up with your fingers,” she said. “If you do a good enough job, I guess I can let you have more.” 

“How much more?” Asami said. “Rolling on the bed with your thighs around my head more? Tied down to the bed with your ankles above your head with your pussy exposed? Or maybe you want me on my knees for you.” 

For you, she emphasized, with her eyes lowered and fingertips against her ribs. 

Korra held onto Asami’s hand, squeezing it in her own, then planted it right on her inner thigh. “You’re not doing anything like that unless you do this right,” she said. She pushed her hips forward, biting her lip when Asami tugged her underwear to the side and worked her fingers in. “I bet you were thinking of this all day while Varrick was talking about his—oh!—magnets—to the left. That’s it, that’s good. Ah! Is that all you got? Kiss me.” 

She grabbed the back of the chair for balance and lifted herself off Asami’s lap so they could unfasten the mess of garters and suspenders. Then she reached into the drawer herself, wrapping her hands around the white glass. Asami’s arms crossed over the back of her thighs and ass, her mouth nipping at Korra’s breasts, still contained within the dress. She tried to follow Korra onto the desk, but Korra shook her head, emphasizing her point with a light kick with her heel. She sat on the desk, tossed off her underwear, and spread herself open. She watched Asami closely, her hands wrapped around the arms of the chair, toes pushing on the ground, heel just barely down. 

“Do you want these to stay on?” Korra said, extending her leg, still in its stocking, though slipping loose now without the garter to hold it up. Asami nodded. Korra hooked her heel around the back of the chair and yanked her in, fast enough that Asami had to catch herself on the edge of the desk with her palms. Korra handed Asami the toy and said, “Come on and get it, then.” 

It was far sweeter than she imagined. Asami took her time with Korra, really opening her up with her fingers and kisses and teeth, before pushing her onto the desk and rolling her onto her side, parting her thighs with firm hands. The glass pushed into her and Asami’s hand closed over her breast. The wooden desk grew warm beneath her back, the toy hot, so much hotter than her own body, masterfully manipulated to always give more, more heft, more power, more. She could feel Asami’s throat working against her forehead when she came, the slight quivering strain in Asami’s forearms against her thighs, Asami’s whole hand keeping the toy buried in her. 

They stayed on the desk for a while after Asami eased the toy out of her and wiped her hand down on a cloth she was also keeping in the tax drawer. Apparently she really hated those taxes. Asami combed Korra’s hair with her fingers, fixing the bun back up and trying to get Korra’s bangs into the leather bands. 

“Leave them like this, I don’t care,” she said. Her voice was shockingly rough. Somehow that, more than the wetness all over her legs and the corresponding throb between them, more than the dress pushed up to her waist and flapping open at the collar, made her feel, really feel, well fucked. But she didn’t fight Asami when Asami cleaned her off and straightened her clothes again. 

When Asami finished rearranging Korra’s clothes, she helped Korra off the desk and twirled her around. 

“You have to stay on your toes, or you’ll fall over,” Asami said. 

“Let’s get to the bed already!” 

She spun Korra around again. At the end of the twirl, she brought Korra close and kissed her, then moved backwards towards the bed, unzipping herself out of her clothes. 

The farther they got from the desk, the more skin was revealed and the darker it became. By the time they made it to the bed only the skin rippling over her ribs and the bony stretch from her hip to her long thigh held onto their true color. Korra pulled on the lamp chain, though it took her a few times to grab onto it. In the wild shaking of the lamplight, Asami’s face flickered between relaxed contentment and glittering need. 

“If I knew you liked me all dolled up like this, I’d do it more often,” Korra said, grinning. 

“I love your usual style, believe me.” She emphasized this with a few choice squeezes of Korra’s back and arms. “But I also like getting a chance to play around with you like this every now and then. I wasn’t expecting you to go the full nine yards with the outfit, though.” 

“You’re too good to me. Really, you are.” 

Asami pressed her cheek to Korra’s chest, then turned so her nose and lips burned hot against Korra’s collarbone. Her hands tangled in the dress straps. She held on, not moving. The silence edged from tender towards uneasy. Then she looked up. An astonishing desperation seared into Korra, so hot that its form was distorted by heat. “I need you. Please.” 

There really was nothing better than being caught in the welcome darkness between Asami’s legs. She had learned more than a few tricks since their early days, new ways to make Asami’s composure strain itself, then fall away, blown off like a tree gone bald in the middle of the night. And after she had wrung Asami out, they stayed in bed together, talking and laughing and not caring who, downstairs, might be kept awake. 

*** 

In the early morning, she woke to Asami’s pencil scratching along her sketchpad and Asami sitting on the edge of the bed, all dressed up. The sun was a fat line on the horizon. Fog had rolled in from the bay. Korra rolled over to see what Asami was working on. Ah, yes. The future of Republic City transportation, the mighty doodle. Discarded plans were strewn around the foot of the bed. 

“Did you get any sleep?” Korra said. By which she meant, your hair’s curling weirdly, but no one’s going to notice unless they have a fixation with your whole head.

“It’s just going to be us engineers, so no one’s going to care about how we look. Except Varrick.” She ripped the page from sketchpad and tossed it across the floor. 

“Are you okay?” Korra said. 

She looked up then, and put her notebook aside. “I wish you weren’t going to see Kuvira alone. The last time you went, you nearly died. You have no idea how scared I was. I thought I lost everything again.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.” 

“You’re the Avatar. I know that.” She accepted Korra’s hug, chin digging into Korra’s shoulder. “I don’t understand why you won’t take her bending.” 

“You know why.” 

“I really, really don’t.” 

“I can’t do it to another bender,” she said. She pulled away from Asami. Her stomach was upset just thinking about it. “Not after what Amon did to me.” 

“Aang did it to Ozai,” Asami said. 

“Kuvira isn’t Ozai, and I’m not Aang. This isn’t any more dangerous than when I went to flush out Red Lotus cells in the mountains, or when I’ve subdued Kuvira’s loyalists in the Confederation.” 

“Those ‘loyalists’ are nothing but bandits.” 

“That makes Kuvira the biggest and baddest bandit of them all, then,” Korra said. 

“She killed my father. She nearly killed _you_ —more than once! How can you joke about her?” 

“I’m not dying,” Korra said. “Look at these guns! Kuvira wrote me a letter—”

“Oh, that’s great.” 

“—and I think she’s actually… remorseful? Or just looking for another chance to finish me off. I’m kidding!” She was doing this all wrong. Asami was crumpling into herself, like a trodden bag. She put her hand on Asami’s wrist and took her chin and tilted it up. “I’m going to be fine. I’ll be back in the city by noon, okay? I’ll come to the factory and bring you lunch. And if I don’t make it out in time, I’ll make one of the White Lotus guys let you know.” 

“I can’t stand the idea of you getting hurt while I’m stuck in a factory all day.” 

“Okay,” Korra said. “Let’s take a shower and wash the doom out of your hair.” 

“I won’t lose you,” Asami said. “I mean it.” 

*** 

She wasn’t Kuvira’s first visitor of the morning. One of the delegates from Heibing was visiting her in the white room. The Heibing delegate had his back to Korra, but she could see Kuvira just fine. Kuvira smirked when she saw Korra, then turned her attention back to the man from Heibing. 

“I thought this prison was supposed to be a secret,” Korra said, waiting outside the room. 

“He used to be a member of the White Lotus,” the guard manning the door said. He was the one who had delivered Kuvira’s letter to her the day before. “He was my training officer when I first started. I heard his grandfather pulled him out of the White Lotus to help shore Heibing against the Earth Empire after you disappeared.” 

She stood on her tiptoes to get a better look at his back. Broad and powerful beneath his green jacket, the build of a bender. He kept a glass of water on the table and leaned forward in the chair with the assurance of a man who knew he had one better over his opponent. The skin of his ear and neck was pale and his hair, cut short and modern, was pure black. 

“He’s a waterbender?” she said. 

“Heibing’s about as far north as you can get in the old Earth Kingdom. Lots of ice. A bunch of old Water Tribe chiefs set up camp there during Yangchen’s cycle. The town’s waterbenders control the water supply for most of the northwest… Hey, wasn’t your crazy uncle chief of the North Pole? Why don’t you know anything about this?” 

“Sorry. I had an episode of amnesia. You know those crazy uncles. Knocked all the geography out of me.” 

The guard looked pensive. “My uncle was a drunk. Until he fell off a curb and hit his head. We’re better off now.” 

After some time, Nanbak stood up. He drained his glass of water. He offered his hand. Kuvira’s lip curled. Her smile had the laziness of the sun buried in the clouds. She remained seated and after a while Nanbak put his hand on the chair, his fingers inching from one end to the next, then slammed the chair to the ground and stomped out. 

“Avatar!” Nanbak shouted, still riled up when he exited the white room. “You spit in our faces by letting that woman live!” 

“He’s joking,” said the guard. 

“It’s politics,” said Nanbak, baring his teeth. A smile? He rubbed his moustache, an incongruous luxurious number that dwarfed his lip. On his forehead was a deep, deliberate scar, a diamond with a cross through it cut into the skin with a knife. “Nothing but politics, Avatar. Nanbak Jin of Heibing. I was your bodyguard for three days. That’s how long it took for me to quit, you were such a handful! You were very young, still training with Master Katara.” He offered his hand. Korra shook it gamely. He held onto her without letting go, his gray eyes growing dark. “But I was serious. Heibing won’t join the Confederation until Kuvira is dead.” 

“What’s with you people?” Korra demanded. “You seriously don’t think killing Kuvira’s going to solve anything.” 

“Have you ever been to Heibing, Avatar Korra? It’s nearly the opposite of Zaofu or Republic City. We keep to the way that we’ve always done things. If you steal, we call you a thief. If you kill a hundred people, we call you a murderer. And we will never let you forget it.” 

His grip became tighter as though he was trying to grind her bones together. She firmed her hand and stared deep into his eyes. Waves of cold flooded into her, but she didn’t let go. He looked sick. As though he might kill someone who looked at him wrong. 

“What’s that for?” she said, nodding to his forehead. 

“The diamond represents the eye. And the cross is my self-blindness. You see,” he said, and his moustache trembled. “Kuvira tricked me. While you were in the South Pole, she plied me with friendship and lies and I convinced my countrymen to turn Heibing to her willingly. By the time we learned she was purging our town of waterbenders, it was too late. Our leaders were jailed, their lands and holdings given to incompetent earthbenders, and countless men and women were murdered resisting her senseless invasion. I left the White Lotus to atone for my folly ever since.” 

“Oh,” she said. Wow. Awkward. She let go of his hand. 

“I heard you have tasted her betrayal for yourself,” said Nanbak. “Remember, Avatar. The reason why a snake only bites once is because it only has so much venom. Kuvira has no such limitation.” 

He left after that, but looked over his shoulder darkly as he went—sizing her up. The second he left, the whole room seemed to warm. She didn’t like this. He was too unstable, too disturbed for her liking. He hadn’t come here just for a chat. She could tell that much. She said to the guard, “Don’t let him leave the island. I need to talk to him.” 

“You can go get him yourself right now,” the guard complained.

She grabbed him by his cape and yanked him close. “This is important,” she said. “You can’t let him leave. Watch him. See what he uses his bending for. Be subtle about it, too.” 

The guard bowed, and left to carry out her orders. Another guard came to replace him, and opened the door to the visitor’s room. 

“Well, well,” Kuvira said, throwing her arm across the back of the chair and crossing her legs, ankle to knee. “Look who’s come back.” 

“I think you mean look who’s lonely,” Korra said, not sitting down just yet. She looked around the white room, searching for any weak points. Not that she doubted Future Industry’s architects, but this place was meant to keep an expert earth and metalbender in—not necessarily to keep other types of benders out. She ran her hand along the far wall. Cool and numbing and no give. 

She sat across from Kuvira. They were separated by another sheet of glass, and her own reflection was suspended over Kuvira’s pale, drawn face. 

“It’s a pain keeping you alive, you know that?” she said. 

“Ah,” Kuvira said. “Feeling the strain of leadership?” 

“Probably because I’m not locking away people who disagree with me in secret prisons, or invading everything I see for no reason.” Kuvira’s smile only grew more disdainful. “Tell me about Nanbak. He seemed really mad at you.”

“Weak,” Kuvira said. “Easily tricked. He got his position through nepotism, not skill, and it shows. I’ve beaten him before. I’ll do it again.” 

“Right,” Korra said. “You’re on an island surrounded by ocean and not a scrap of metal or earth in your cell. You’re definitely going to beat a waterbender.” 

“It’s not what he can do. It’s what’s already been done. I’ve heard the rumors. Nanbak lost the will to fight. All he can do is storm around and yell at people.” She flicked a finger across her forehead and laughed, casual. “You didn’t notice?” 

“You’re underestimating him,” Korra said. 

“I overestimated you.” She grinned, her cheeks turning pink from excitement. It was just part of who she was, Korra knew that. She’d shit talk a bowl of rice before eating it. But she still had to fight the urge to punch through the glass and into her smug face. “What’s the matter? Scared?” 

“I’m just wondering what the point in this is,” Korra said. “You can’t do anything to me. You can’t make me go, you can’t finish me off, you can’t get yourself out of the prison. I bet you still read those books you hate and the morning papers and think about what you could be doing if you were out there.” 

“You’ll never do what I did,” Kuvira said, her voice low. “I did the impossible. I had the Earth Empire’s flags flying in every city-state in the nation. I know what Heibing wants from you. If you get Heibing, Su won’t stand for it. She’ll rip apart your Confederation like the worthless pieces of paper it’s made of. And if you don’t get Heibing, they’ll choke the water off from the northern states. Your Confederation will fall apart within the year.” 

“Your ‘Empire’ fell in months.” 

“It wouldn’t have if the Red Lotus had killed you.” 

“Most people only fail at killing me once. What number are you up to, three?” She stood up. “Meditate,” she said. “Try thinking about things you can change instead of the things you can’t.” 

*** 

The guard passed her a note when she passed. The first part described Nanbak’s movements: circling the tower. Walking on the beach. Took out a watch, then wrote several things down. Walked to some known difficult spots, looked around, then walked away. At the bottom, written in an alarmed hand, made her pause. _His eyes glowed. Kwon and Junsuk saw it, too._

She read the letter two more times to make sure she understood his path. She followed the path with her eyes. Then she burned the letter. 

Nanbak was waiting for her at the dock with his arms crossed. “Why are you keeping me here?” he said. 

“I didn’t want to miss the ferry back to the city,” she said. “It only runs a few times a day.” 

“You’re going to make me late. Heibing has an audience with Raiko at one.” 

“Sorry,” she said, and tried to look sheepish. 

He scowled at her. They got in the ferry. He shook his head at the White Lotus sentry who tried to climb in after them. 

“I know the way now,” he said. “I want to have some alone time with the Avatar.” 

He used his bending to make the boat go faster. The boat wasn’t adapted for it, but she recognized the movements of his arms and water as being similar to traditional Water Tribe styles of steering. His flow was regular and steady, but the movement of his arms were based on straight lines rather than curves, forcing him to stop and recalibrate every few minutes. She could tell that he was better suited for bending ice than water, and that, though he was skilled, he hadn’t practiced past the basics in a long time. 

“Let me take over,” she said finally. “You’ll be tired by the time you get to the city.” 

He nodded his head and turned control over to her. 

“I know why you’ve made me come back with you,” he said. “You think I’m going to do something reckless. But you’ve seen me. I’m too weak to do anything now.” 

“I understand how you feel,” she said. “You’re angry with her and feel betrayed.” She hadn’t thought of anything to say beyond that. She scrunched her brows, focusing on the movement of her arms before speaking again. “But you can’t go around threatening people and walking around a prison like you’re planning on breaking in. You’re a statesman. Get it together.” 

He laughed. 

“I mean it,” she said, and put a hand on his shoulder. The second she did, she felt the same cold chill pass between them. Different, now that they were over water: stronger. Colder. A frozen spirit, inside him. Nanbak went stiff as a caught cat deer. She tightened her grip, trying to make it firm but not controlling. “What’s that?” 

All the water around the boat froze. She fell backwards from the sudden stop, then shot fire from her heel straight at Nanbak. No good: the air was so cold that the fire was half the size she expected, with none of the force. Nanbak dodged and grabbed onto her leg, trying to grapple her into a leg lock. Her skin blistered at his touch. She yelled from shock and pain, and this time blasted air into his face, hard enough that he was lifted up and away from her. She kept contact with his body, twisting her hips and legs around until she had him by the neck. Then she flipped him over her back, sending him crashing into the ice. 

Back on her feet. The boat was frozen in the ocean, and the ice around them was growing. Nanbak’s irises were white, and the rest of his skin splotchy pink from cold. She could see the tail of a spirit poking out of his mouth when he breathed. 

He flung a massive spike of ice at her. She split it in half with her own waterbending, swinging it around her body to throw it back at him; it collided against a storm of other spikes, and the shards, hundreds of them, launched at her. She blew fire through her mouth to form a wall, and leapt as far away as she could. 

She needed to immobilize him long enough to purify him with spiritbending. An earth cage would be her best bet—except they were stuck in the middle of Yue Bay. 

She raced for her glider in the boat, only for the ground to ripple beneath her feet and lose all friction. She went down with an undignified yell. Nanbak’s moustache was white from frost, his nose a furious pink, and his eyes even whiter than before. Thick walls of ice hemmed her in, repairing itself even when she hit it hard enough to crack it nearly all the way through. 

“You’ll ruin everything,” said Nanbak. “I gave up too much for you to stop me now!” 

The ice beneath her feet encased her legs. She began to sink. 

“No!” she shouted. “You’re not putting me down here. Let me out! Ugh, you snake!” She hit the ice, trying to form a connection to the surface for air, for water, anything outside of the white walls. Her vision was narrowing, breaths coming in short as the box sank into the ocean. She shoved her forehead against the ice, then again. Breathe. She was getting further away from Nanbak and the spirit. Soon she’d be able to break the ice. Then she’d swim back up to the City, beat him to the ground, save the day like a champ. 

She pulled her head back again and smacked the wall as hard as she could. Cracks formed. She hit the walls again, this time with her fist, hitting and hitting until water rushed in. 

Immediately, she knew something was wrong. The water coming in was black and sludgy and impervious to her bending. She sealed the ice chamber shut again, but the water level kept rising. Water outside of the ice sped around her. A terrible snapping sound above her and her chamber was set loose into the ocean. The force of the box coming loose knocked her head into the wall. 

Black out. 

*** 

Ten minutes after noon, the secretary knocked on the door of a board room in Future Industries and opened it. “Excuse me,” he said. “I have a message.” 

“Excellent,” Varrick said, cracking his knuckles. “I love getting fanmail.” 

“Move,” Asami said, pushing him out of the way. She greeted the secretary with a smile. “Is it from Korra?” 

“It’s for Baatar,” the secretary said. “Huan Beifong was arrested in Avatar Park for bending a fountain upside down.” 

“After… Oh, dear,” Baatar said. “I better take care of that.” 

Another messenger came jogging down the hall as Baatar strode out, rubbing the side of his head and muttering, _oh, those kids_. “Yes,” Asami said, standing up again.

“Sorry,” the messenger said. “This one is for Varrick.” 

“What did I tell you! People can’t get enough of me,” Varrick said, striding over with a grating swagger. 

“Let’s take an early lunch,” Zhu Li said. “We can reconvene after Baatar comes back, and Varrick opens his own fanmail.”

“Great idea, Zhu Li!” Varrick said. He elbowed Asami a few times in the ribs. “That’s my wife. Can you believe it?” 

“Varrick, I was at your wedding. You challenged me to a drinking contest three times.” 

“My special drink! Guaranteed to knock all memories right out of you. I market it to family reunions. Hey, wasn’t my wedding around that time you and Avatar Korra shacked up? Where is she? I got just the ray gun to test on her.” 

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Asami huffed. 

She went to her office. Fifteen minutes past noon. She drummed her fingers against her desk. Images of Korra gliding in through the window came to mind, or Korra on the streets on Naga’s back. She might have gotten caught up in another unexpected spirit meditation or got looped into helping Mako with an investigation, or run into Bolin… 

No. She picked up her phone and put in a call to Air Temple Island. 

“Yes,” Tenzin said, sounding winded. In the background, she could hear Rohan shouting, Daddy! Meelo’s chasing me with a razor! “Yes! This is Tenzin. Of the Air Nation. Let me help you!” 

“It’s Asami,” she said. “Korra went to see Kuvira this morning and I haven’t heard back from her yet. I thought you might know where she is.” 

“We’ve just returned, but I have today and tomorrow’s schedule right here. Her presence hasn’t been requested until later this—Meelo, you put that down!—afternoon. I’ll call the prison and see if she’s still there. I’ll call you—Meelo!” 

The line went dead. A few minutes went by. Her phone rang. Tenzin again. 

“She left with Nanbak Jin on the ferry several hours ago, but the boat hasn’t shown up at the dock. Nanbak came with the Heibing delegation. They should be talking with Raiko right now. Let me talk to Lin, she’ll … Ikki!” 

Silence again. An assistant knocked on her door and came in with a bunch of papers. A new design for a biplane dashboard and interior. 

“Was this made for someone with three hands?” she said. “You’ll kill someone like this.” 

She had barely finished making her notes on the side when another assistant stuck her head through the door, and opened it wider. 

Jinora came through, spectral and blue. She was growing out her hair, and the bun drooped towards her neck in the midday heat. “I heard you and Dad talking,” she said. “I thought I could help look for Korra while Dad’s making calls, so I teleported over to her. Or as close as I could get. She’s been kidnapped by a spirit.” 

“Oh! Is that it?” She settled back into her chair and rubbed her neck and collarbone. She hadn’t realized how wound up she had been until now; how much she had been expecting bad news. Worse news, she supposed. On a scale of ‘mildly concussed’ to ‘bleeding out somewhere,’ kidnapped by spirits was somewhere between ‘took a wrong turn to Omashu’ and ‘being chased by a sandworm.’ 

“It’s more serious than that,” Jinora said. “I can’t break through. And if I can’t get through—” 

“Then no one else can. I know. But if it’s a spirit, I know she’ll make it out.” She turned her head a bit so she could see Yue Bay, a small bit of it, through her window. “If she’s missing, then the delegate she was riding back with should be, too. I wonder what happened.”

“Nothing good. I’ll see if I can find him. Hold on.” 

She was getting tired of holding on. 

“I found him!” Jinora said. “Dad pointed me to the hotel his delegation is staying in. One of them is badly hurt. I heard them say that he fought with Korra.” 

There was only one hotel used for heads of state and fancy diplomatic galas. Well. Two, if one party brought a large entourage, but Raiko had specifically asked the states to show some restraint. 

“What floor are they on?” 

“Third floor, south wing.” 

Asami grabbed her glove from her desk. “I’ll call Mako,” she said. “We’ll meet you at the hotel.” 

 

*** 

Mako arrived at the New Four Elements Hotel before she did, in his uniform, arms behind his back, best Beifong face on. She pulled up next to him and popped the passenger door open for him. He slid in, tucking his long legs into his chest to fit. 

“Chief let me go when I told her Korra was missing,” he said. “I know she’s the type to pick fights, but what beef does she have with this Jin guy? And kidnapped by spirits? Can’t she have a normal week?” 

“That’s not fair. It’s been at least a month.” 

That got him to smile. He reached for a hug and she returned it easily, relishing the strength in his chest and back, the familiar heat. She buried her nose into his shoulder. He went stiff at first, then did a passable imitation of relaxing. “Everything all right?” he said. 

“Did Korra tell you what happened the last time she saw Kuvira?” 

He shook his head. She knew what she was going to say was going to make her sound like the killjoy she would have abhorred being when she was eighteen. Her younger self, hotshot rider with glamorous hair, would have been angry at Kuvira, ready to run her hand along Korra’s healed wound and inquire anxiously into Korra’s health. But she would not have felt nauseated like she felt now, unmoored in a sea of worry. She knew what she could lose. How much of her own life was at stake. 

She disentangled herself from Mako’s arms. “She brought Kuvira lunch and Kuvira tried to kill her,” she said. “And now this. And even after all that, you know she’ll be back at the prison next month with flowers.” 

“I’m not happy about it, either,” Mako said. “But she knows what she’s doing.”

“What is she doing?” Mako tossed his hand into the air, his face mushing indistinguishably between affront and bewilderment. She put her hand to her forehead and said, “I sound like a terrible girlfriend.” 

“Well—” 

“You probably shouldn’t say anything,” she said. 

“Right. That’s fair. Look, I don’t know what she’s thinking, either. And with Kuvira, I don’t have a clue.” Now she let her hand slide over her face. But he put his hand on her shoulder and said, “I know it’s none of my business, but I know you two. You guys can talk about anything. Ask her.” 

“Thank you. That helps.” She covered his hand with hers, then let go. “Where’s Prince Wu? I thought he’d be glued to your hip.” 

“He’s smoozing at Suyin. Really trying hard to get Zaofu to join.” 

“Imagine if he tried to do that to Lin,” she said.

“Why are you on a first name basis with my boss?” he said, recoiling. 

“That’s her name! What do you call her?” 

“Chief,” he said, and sagged into the seat with his hands in his armpits. 

*** 

Jinora arrived a few minutes later by glider suit. She had the look of busy importance her father had around him sometimes, only unhassled by the demands of young children. “Sorry I’m late. I needed to look something up.” 

“What were you researching?” Asami said. 

“Spirits in the northern Earth Kingdom and the borderlands of the Northern Water Tribe. I knew I heard of Heibing before. It’s famous for the ring of spirit water springs under the main city. Their best waterbenders invented a special technique for borrowing a spirit’s powers. I sensed a strange energy around the bender Korra fought, and I bet that’s why.” 

The New Four Elements Hotel had a confounded, musky scent. Ordinarily the hotel manager used four different types of incense, one from each nation, but for the Earth Confederation’s negotiations, he had switched them all for Earth incenses. The smell persisted up to the second floor. Up on the third, it dissipated. And on the south wing, someone had left a window open, bringing fresh air down the hall. 

The room was at the end of the hall. They could hear people talking inside, two of them with great passion and the others quieter. Occasional words slipped out: you waterbenders… Can’t leave him… What… the Avatar… The spring… Under miles of water by now… Don’t… His grandfather… Like it’ll… once they find out… Avatar… 

Asami fit her glove on. She felt cold and purposeful, a piece of good steel. But she wasn’t Korra: she didn’t have an Avatar’s license to barge into a room and hope to get what she wanted through overpowering whoever was inside. She flexed her hand, then said, “Should we knock?” 

“You think they’ll tell us anything if we _knock_?” Mako said. 

“They’re going to be late for their meeting with Raiko,” Asami said. “If you interrupt them, they’ll remember that. Just say you’re helping Lin with security.”

Mako straightened out his uniform and smoothed his hair back. He knocked on the door. “This is Detective Mako with the Republic City Police. Is everything all right in there?” 

Silence from within the room. Then a man said, “What do you want?” 

“Just checking to make sure you guys are going to make it on time to your meeting with the President,” Mako said. “We heard some rumors that one of your men attacked the Avatar. My partner here wants to take a statement with Nanbak Jin.” 

Water began to run inside the pipes. Jinora looked out the open window, and nodded to it. She mouthed, _I’ll cut them off from the fire escape_ and jumped out, her glider suit flashing red as she zipped around the building. 

“Nanbak Jin isn’t here,” the man said. 

“Jin was with Avatar Korra on their way back from a secret prison site,” Asami said. “Our sources say he came back here.” 

“Your sources, you say.” They heard muffled voices inside. Arguing. The water stopped running. The man said angrily, “In Heibing, officers as bad as you clowns would be scarred and disgraced.” 

“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,” Asami said, activating her glove and standing so she could easily use the door as a shield and still attack someone with her hand. “Let me try to clear everything up. Open the door and let’s talk face to face. It’d be a shame if you had to miss your meeting with the President over a small misunderstanding.” 

Mako gave her an alarmed look. She didn’t know what he expected; it was obvious they weren’t planning on helping. He raised his guard, almost reluctantly. 

The door opened up part way. A man in a green suit peered out, glaring out at them. Asami smiled at him. She tugged her glove off behind her back and offered her right hand for him to shake. He shook it, confusion settling over his face. Good. She had caught him off-guard. She put her foot between the door and his own foot and said, “I’m Asami. This is Detective Mako.” 

Mako flashed his badge. 

“We were on our way to City Hall, anyway,” the man said. “Look around. We have nothing to hide. Let’s move.” 

The others filed after the man. One of them muttered under her breath, “Detective. Yeah, right, pretty boy.” 

Asami waited until they were on their way down the staircase before striding into the room. Jinora was on the fire escape. She shook her head. No catch. She helped Asami and Mako sweep the room. 

“Maybe Nanbak left before we got here,” Asami said. 

“When I astral projected here, he had frostbite. Really, really bad frostbite. They were trying to heal him with spirit water, but his skin blistered and turned black and…” 

Asami winced. “That sounds horrible.”

Jinora fluffed some pillows. Then she said, “If he died, they could have thrown his corpse out the window before we got here.” 

“We would’ve noticed that,” Mako said. “Would you guys stop talking and focus on investigating?” 

Mako was going through their documents. Jinora was inspecting the furniture. Asami had gotten her hands on the delegates’ suitcases and day bags, and was now going through their belongings. Nothing too unusual on a first pass. Clothes, toiletries, books, something that she was definitely not going to touch again if it was what she thought it was, and… one really, really large bottle of an opened wine. 

It was heavier than it looked. She lifted it up to the afternoon sun. Only half full. And against the light, the liquid had an ominous shine. 

She uncorked the bottle and gave it a sniff. Didn’t smell like any kind of wine she knew of. It smelled clean and a little spicy. Orange peel and coriander, if her nose was right. A hint of oil over water. She poured some onto her fingers. It didn’t look like the water in the spirit world, or the flashes of silvery spirit water that came from spirit oases or springs. It _looked_ heavy. Almost like poison. It beaded on her gloved fingertips, then suddenly lost its power and dripped, harmlessly, in rivulets down her arm. 

“Mako,” she said. She poured some more of the water out. 

“There’s more spirit water in there than there is in all of Air Temple Island,” Mako said, his eyebrows raised. He put the bottle on the coffee table in the middle of the room. “They must’ve been expecting an attack in the city.” 

“Or an attack from the Avatar.” 

“That, too.” Mako’s eyebrows now looked as though they might flap off of his face. “I know a guy…” 

Jinora called for them from the bathroom. 

“Look at this,” she said, pointing to the bathtub and out an open window. Heavy black sludge backing up the drain. Black sludge on the windowsill, leading to a melting ice slide. 

The slide went down the street and stopped just above a manhole down a blind alley. 

“We’re not going to catch him down there,” Mako said, replacing the manhole cover with a grunt. “I’m calling one of our consultants for help. He might know something about this water.” 

*** 

The consultant arrived in the hotel room wearing a long beige coat and the strangest hat she had ever seen. Earflaps and fur-lined, yet unmistakably an urban creation. No one from the Water Tribe would walk around looking that silly and pompous. 

“I’m in disguise,” the consultant said, then ripped off his moustache, coat and hat in a single swooping gesture, revealing a plain black suit and the saddest bolo tie Asami had ever seen. “My skills are in high demand among the heads of state and I haven’t a moment to waste. Now, detective, Ms. Sato, Master Jinora. How can I help you?” 

“You know us by name?” Jinora said. 

“My dear, it would be more surprising if I did not know you. You are one of two airbending masters in the world. Ms. Sato is well-known for her work in restoring Republic City. Detective Mako…” He gazed at Mako briefly, then said, “I had my associate Wataru procure a list of detectives in Future Industry’s pocket and guessed based on age.” 

“I’m not in anyone’s pocket, and we’ve worked two cases together!” 

“I put all nonessential persons out of mind the second they are no longer relevant,” he said. “Normally I would not have even taken the case, but fortunately for you, the only other cases that have come up have been dull affairs such as finding some admiral’s lost ring, or some stuffy head of state worried her oldest son is romancing the daughter of a hated family. So instead I am here to investigate some minor bending mystery.” He offered his hand to Jinora. “You may call me Curly Fu.” 

“His name is Suo Gaoming,” Mako said irritably and shoved the bottle of spirit water at Curly Fu. “Look, here’s the spirit water I mentioned. Jinora says the man we’re after had bad frostbite, but he escaped through the window using his bending and left behind this black residue. This is our last lead on him.” 

Curly Fu opened the bottle, lowered an eyedropper into it, and dripped some onto his tongue. Then he went to the bathroom, swiped some of the black stuff onto his fingertips and licked it. He peered at the ice with a magnifying glass. Asami was surprised he didn’t try to lick that, too. 

“Heibing spirit water,” Curly Fu said, raising the bottle. “Below average quality. This here—” He pointed to the black stuff. “—is polluted spirit water. Happens when spirit water is bent by a corrupted spirit. To find the spirit’s whereabouts, it’d be a simple matter of calling the Avatar to do her usual thing: find it, kill it, and go back home. Job done.” He gathered up his disguise and fit it all back on. This time he put on a monocle to go with the moustache. “As for the Avatar herself—”

“Yes?” Asami said. “Please, if you know anything, tell us.” 

“—her habit of being abducted and breaking out of captivity makes locating her a difficult process,” he said. “So I wish you good luck.” 

*** 

They separated after that. Jinora went back to Air Temple Island to try asking the local spirits where Korra might be. Mako went to City Hall to investigate a motive. Asami parked her car and went up to the roof of her apartment building so she could visualize what had happened. 

She had to go back to the beginning of this. White Lotus waterbenders ran the ferry to Kuvira’s prison from Air Temple Island. But the location of the actual prison was secret; so secret that Asami had to be blindfolded on her way to and from the prison when she and a small team of trusted men did the land and material survey. Kuvira was barely allowed visitors—especially now, after what she had done to Korra. 

So, there was already one thing wrong with the picture. Nanbak Jin never should have been allowed onto the prison grounds. What was the connection? Jilted lover? A healer? Unlikely. The White Lotus had their own. And Nanbak had been on the ferry alone with Korra on the way back. The White Lotus hadn’t sent anyone with them. He must have been allowed to travel to the island with his eyes open, and was allowed to go back by himself, without an escort. For whatever reason, they trusted him. 

Jinora had said Nanbak had some kind of spirit inside him. Might have some kind of spirit, in the tradition of his people. So, let’s move from that assumption. That he was housing some spirit. Had he manipulated people on the island with that spirit? Hypnotized them or scrambled their chakras so they did his bidding? She could go on speculating like that for hours and still get nowhere. 

Why had Korra gone with him? She could have flown back. She must have wanted to speak with him alone, privately. About his state; or about Kuvira. 

The prison, Kuvira. Kuvira, the prison. Korra, who had pulled a number of strings to keep Kuvira in Republic City, who went to the prison twice a month, who had been attacked and still refused to give up, who was now missing. Nanbak Jin, who now knew the way back to the prison. Eyes open. 

Mid-afternoon now. Asami headed down the stairs, changing out of her day clothes and into something more suitable for a visit to Kuvira’s prison. 

*** 

She took the ferry from Air Temple Island, leaving with a group of guards heading to the prison to beef up security. A few other guards split up to search for Korra, down whatever hole she might have fallen into; Jinora had told Tenzin what they had found. The rows of White Lotus uniforms made for a good impression, but they seemed like a lackluster bunch overall. A part of her itched to do a good old-fashioned corporate restructuring and see how they fared. A ton of them would leave. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

It was late afternoon when she arrived. One of the guards already on the island jogged up to meet her. “Ms. Sato,” he said. 

“Hi, Hyun,” she said. She had given up on getting him to call her by her first name ages ago. They used to play a few rounds of pai sho and cards while waiting for Korra to wake up, both after the poison and before it. Did this count as a promotion for him, or was it a lateral move? 

“I knew one of us should have gotten onto the ferry with her,” Hyun said, not sounding very apologetic. She suppressed the snapping remark she wanted to say. She knew how these guys worked. There was always someone higher up to blame. 

“Could you let me see Kuvira?” she said. 

“No,” he said reflexively. Not the tone of an enforcer. He just sounded as though he had never in his life considered the possibility. 

Good. She might be able to get an audience. She put her hand on his shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. “It’s for Korra,” she said. “She’s still gone. Please. I have to know everything I can.” 

“You’re not even a bender,” Hyun said. He looked behind him, as though he was trying to determine an escape path. 

She drew away from him and looked as pitiful as possible. “She won’t think of me as a threat, I know,” Asami said. “But she might let her guard down if I go. Please, Hyun, you know her pretty well, don’t you? About as well as you know Korra.” 

“I don’t know. Avatar Korra doesn’t talk to me much. We talked about her crazy uncle this morning.” 

“I’m sure that’s… plenty.” 

Ten minutes later, he let her into the tower. She couldn’t take any metal into the visitor’s room, not even a buckle. She stripped down to her shirt, pants, and a pair of slippers, borrowed. Her boots, jacket, and belongings were left in a special locker for her to fetch later. Her hair fell loose down her back, metal barrette in the pocket of her jacket. She expected to feel vulnerable, but instead it focused her. The cool air on the insides of her wrist, the lightness of her feet. She could have been at the gym, practicing throws and locks with her trainer. 

Inside the white room, Kuvira sat in her chair, arm thrown across the back and an imperial boredom plain on her face. Asami sat on the other side. 

“I’m popular today,” Kuvira said. Her voice was, to Asami’s relief, strong and clear. Her father’s had been soft and thick, as though he had gone a long time without saying anything. If Kuvira had sounded anything like that, she didn’t know what she would’ve done. Stood up and left. Tried to hit her, maybe. “I haven’t seen you in months.” 

“Since you destroyed the city.” 

“No. You were on the island when they brought me to this prison. You stayed on the ferry but you were there. You didn’t want to see the woman who killed your father, but you wanted to know I had made it into your box.” Her smile curled, like a splitting wire. “I saw you as they walked me up.” 

She wasn’t wrong. It had been exactly as Kuvira had said. So what? Asami leaned forward, ready to launch straight into a question about Korra. No. That was exactly what Kuvira was expecting. She couldn’t afford to walk into Kuvira’s plans. “Nanbak Jin’s gone missing. He disappeared between this island and the docks. Strange, isn’t it? You almost never hear of waterbenders drowning.” 

“He might have been able to manage it,” Kuvira said, laughing. “Yes, he was here today. He didn’t look well. He might have been drinking. Disgraceful.” 

“He must have been important if you bothered to see him.” 

“I don’t have a choice. He used to be White Lotus. Got some of his old comrades to bring me down and stand watch. That young one there, Hyun. Look at him.” Kuvira nodded. Asami didn’t turn her head to look. She caught Hyun’s serious, pale face in the glass divider. “I have him send my letters.” 

What had Jinora said about warriors from Heibing. Some kind of spirit thing. She wished she knew more about them. 

Kuvira rapped on the glass. She held her palms open on the table. “I am sorry, you know,” she said. “About your father.” 

“You aren’t sorry about killing him,” Asami said. “You never saw people as anything more than bugs. Don’t pretend that you care. I don’t think you feel anything at all.” 

“That’s cold.” She left her hands where they were, but turned them over. “If Korra were here, she’d tell you I’ve changed. We’ve gotten to know each other.” 

“She’s missing, too.” 

“What?” Kuvira said. Her face twisted on itself in horror—then she laughed. “Is that what you wanted? You wanted me to cry over it?” 

“You’re horrible,” Asami said. 

“You’ve been teaching the Avatar pai sho, right? Have that guard, Hyun, bring us a board. If you win, I’ll tell you whatever you want. Or something like that.” 

“I wouldn’t trust you to open a door.” 

“Hey. Come on.” Kuvira’s face became almost sad. A worried line appeared between her brows. “I want to help.” 

Then why the game, Asami almost asked. Because she was lonely? Because she wanted to make Asami work for it? Probably both. 

“I get to ask a question every time I take a tower or fortress,” Asami said. 

“Only on the third game. Best of three.” 

“And if I win the first two?” 

“I don’t think you should make premature promises,” Kuvira said. 

Asami got a board from Hyun. She’d move pieces for the both of them. They’d keep time according to the clock on the wall. Thirty seconds between moves. Fire Nation rules. That one Kuvira had requested. Fire Nation style wasn’t a good speed match style, but at least it’d put them both off-balance. 

She won the first game. Kuvira took the second, barely. The speed suited her faster style and, Asami realized, she must have played Fire Nation pai sho with Korra. Korra had learned almost all of her Fire Nation moves from Asami, and while she wasn’t great at any type of pai sho, Korra had the uncanny ability to reproduce nearly anything she saw: bending, calligraphy, advanced pai sho plays. Kuvira had chosen these rules because she knew she could win. 

“Should we take out the dragon pieces?” Kuvira said. 

“The only time I hear is that when the other person’s afraid of losing. Black or red?” 

“Red.” It’d be her move first, then. Kuvira closed her eyes. “Ostrich-horse. East.” 

It took them a few minutes to set up their territories. Fire Nation pai sho, like Earth Confederation pai sho, started on the army faces, and revolved around capturing and controlling towers and the fortresses. Fortresses could hold dragons and cannons; towers could transport smaller units quickly using paths and rivers. Each piece, if defeated, could stay in for two more rounds, but only if the flower on the reverse side of the tile was in disharmony with its killer’s. Plum and thistle, narcissus and orchid, red lotus, white lotus. 

She was going to win this, she realized. Kuvira knew the flower rule, but not the best choices. It didn’t matter what kind of piece Asami killed: Kuvira, eager to push, would move the flipped piece to retaliate against the one that killed it. The bright flare of Kuvira’s eyes, the decisiveness of her fingers. Yes. She could win this on mechanics. 

Kuvira took Asami’s western tower first, but Asami claimed the southern and eastern one in quick succession. 

“Did you have anything to do with Korra’s disappearance?” Asami said. 

“I’m just as broken up as you are about it,” Kuvira said. “All right, I’m not expecting her back in my bed later. But she’s the only one who’s… looking out for me.” 

“That’s not true. Didn’t Korra tell you? Suyin wants to take you back to Zaofu, the way she did with Baatar Jr.” 

She didn't know what it was about Kuvira’s jump in her seat, like a flinching rabbit, that made her so angry. The way her head tilted downward afterwards to look at the board, yet made a mockery of deference without intending it? The ridiculousness of Kuvira caring about Korra? The fact that it was possible for Kuvira to care and still hurt the woman she loved; for Korra to use her strength to let herself be hurt. It hurt her, too, like a fish bone buried in her throat. 

“Dragon captures minister.” They played a few more moves. Then Kuvira said, “The Avatar will never let me go. She feels responsible for me.” 

That didn’t mean anything, she told herself. She captured Kuvira’s ostrich-horse unit with an infantry unit. That brought her infantry directly in front of the fortress. “Check.”

***

When Korra woke up, she was in a puddle but on dry land. The ice had melted around her. Her eyes throbbed in her head. When she blinked, the black sludge from before dripped from the sockets and onto the floor. Gross. She shook her head a few more times. More of the stuff came pouring out. She tried opening her eyes and firebending at the same time, but couldn’t see the fire at all. 

Don’t think too hard about the blind thing. Toph would have probably told her it’d make her a better bender. 

Ground was rough stone. Limestone if she had to guess. Water dripped from above. Waves from behind, rough and turbulent. No going back that way. Wind coming from ahead of her. Smelled of… mold and lichen and dying seaweed. But the air temperature was warm and she bet there’d be a way out if she moved forward. 

She stood up and bumped her head against the ceiling before she even got her knee off the ground. “Ow!” She spread her hand out above her. The roof sloped upwards. One wall to her left when she swept her hand above her. Right wall was two, three paces away. She got on her knees and advanced forward, keeping one hand against the ceiling and another against the wall. The gunk in her eyes wept in steady rivulets. Toph definitely never had to deal with this. 

It was a short walk. Fifteen steps later, she reached a slick, mossy area, the ceiling now far away. On her next step, she slipped and fell on the wet ground. She had reached a pool of some kind. Round, judging by the shape of the rock nearby. It pulsed with spirit energy. She bent some of the water up to her face, eager to cleanse it, then stopped. The water levels were far lower than a healthy spring should be. If she used it to clean her eyes out, the sludge would ruin the water and whatever spirits were living inside it. She’d have to wait until she could get one of the vials Tenzin kept on Air Temple Island, or until she went into the spirit world herself. 

She hit the wall with her fist. Extending up above her was a network of caves. 

Up, then. Into the dark. 


	3. Endless Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bunch of people are trapped on an island-slash-cove-slash-I'm not that great at coastal geography. But not in the Lost way.

Korra used her earthbending to make the climb out of the cavern with the spirit pool. Then it was carefully picking her way through the rock, closing the gaps behind her so she wouldn’t cause a collapse somewhere else. For a long time, she could only sense water on the other side of the wall, pounding at the rock like an angry man at a door. She had to adjust course several times to avoid breaching into water and when she finally arrived at the cave system, she was attacked by a rock rat lizard, which she pulverized with fire before moving on. 

Through the caves. Through the darkness. Moving towards the salt and the wind. Eventually she became impatient and started bending her way through the caves, forcing her way through until she hit fresh air. Water rushed in. She shoved that out of the way, too, spinning and turning around until she carried herself back to shore. 

How long had she been knocked out? It had been morning when she left. The heat of the sun right now suggested late afternoon, maybe evening. 

Her seismic sense was getting better, at least. One stomp on the ground and she could tell that the caves she had just come through were now below her; she was on some kind of island; and there was a structure, not too far off. Another stomp with the opposite foot revealed more or less the same thing, but something else, too: spirit vines.

*** 

She was barely halfway to the spirit vines when the air began to buzz around her. 

Something crawled up her face. She yelled and tried to slap it, but it leapt from her cheek to her hair, then into her ear. 

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” 

“Augghh?!” She shook her head, then tried to stick her finger in to chase it. It spun around the canal, still saying, Hey, hey, hey! “Auugh, wait! Get out!” 

“Move your hand! Move your hand!” 

She moved her hand. Hundreds of small legs wiggled out and curled around the shell of her ear. She put her hands on her knees and curled her fingers to keep herself from trying to squish the spirit. “Okay,” she said. “I’m listening.” 

“Your face is all messed up! Just like the water in the bay! What are you planning on doing, huh?” 

“I’m working on it. I’m on my way to the spirit vine to reach my friends. They’ll be able to help.” 

“Why didn’t you ask us?” the spirit said, tapping its left legs against her temple. Shrimp? Centipede? She was tempted to stick it in her mouth and see if it tasted like the centishrimp down in the Southern Water Tribe. “Huh, huh, huh?” 

“I didn’t know about this until just now!” 

“I bet you weren’t going to call Granny in the sea.” 

“Granny in the… Who’s that? Katara?” 

“The manta whale! The one who cleans up this whole bay, and the western sea! She’s been asking what you’re planning on doing.” 

“Fix up my eyes, capture Nanbak—”

“After that, after that! After all that, you’ll have a big mess! She wants to know when you’re going to clean it up, since she can’t do it by herself.” 

She straightened up, put her hands on her waist, and twisted her spine to the west, then to the east. “Guess we’ll have to work out the details once I’ve taken care of the source of the problem.” 

“She’s really wondering!” 

“I’m telling you, I can’t start thinking about the clean up until I capture Nanbak! If your dam breaks, do you fix the dam or do you try to scoop the water up with a bucket? Ow! Don’t bite me.” She shook her head. It crawled onto the other side of her face. “The best I can do for now is to stop Nanbak,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t do more, but there’s only one of me. If Granny will meet me once I’m done, I’ll do everything I can. But it can’t be now. Can you tell her that?” 

“She thought you’d say that,” the centishrimp said. It sounded upset. “Let me help you with your eyes before I go.” It scuttled over her entire face. Puffs of air blew straight into her eyeballs. Then its tongue flicked out. 

“Aauughhh!” 

“Stop screaming! This is the best way! This is really the best way!” It flipped her eyelid up. Its tongue moved over her eyeball in tiny, cold strokes. She pulled it off her face and set it on her shoulder. 

“Sorry,” she said. “That’s too gross for me.” 

“She said you’d say that, too,” said the centishrimp. Korra was getting really annoyed with this Granny. 

“I promise I’ll have Nanbak pinned down by sunrise,” she said. She didn’t have a choice. It’d be a full moon tonight. As a waterbender, this was Nanbak’s best chance to kill Kuvira. “Thanks for trying to help. I’m sure it’d be faster than waiting for my friends.” 

The centishrimp chirped. “I’ll take you to the nearest spirit vine. At least you apologize well.” 

“Thanks. I’ve had practice.” Press conferences. Tenzin. Tenzin writing her speeches to give at press conferences so she and Raiko could stop firing shots over the evening news. 

It still took her longer than she expected to get to the spirit vines, and once she got to them, it was a pain sifting through the dirt and rocks to grab onto one. Out here they were slimmer than the ones in the city proper, peripheral and curling tenderly and warm around her hands. The centishrimp demanded a kiss. She peeled it off her shoulder and tossed it into the water. 

Time to focus. She was on the very tip of the spirit wilds, far from the place she had fought with Nanbak. Where was he now? Not in the waters—not as blackened or rotten as she feared, but definitely a problem. At least he was out for now. 

On one of the islands? Not that she could sense. Back in the city. From the activity in the city and the feel of traffic on the roads, she guessed it was early evening. Not sunset just yet. She did a quick scan, then another, then located him: crouching in a cold meat warehouse, bending the ice to water and shivering in pain as he tried to heal himself. His fingers and wrists were the color of wax and stiff as he moved the water over his blistered feet. The water turned black the second he healed himself. Not very well. She guessed the Earth Kingdom waterbenders weren’t much better than the oldest of the old Northern Water Tribe benders when it came to separating the fighting arts from the healing. 

She knew where he was. Now she needed to get there. She swept through the city again, this time searching for Jinora… She was with Ikki on the shore of one of the small islands in the Bay, chatting with a spirit. She had never tried contacting someone through the vines before, but she focused, hard, on poking Jinora a few times on the forehead. Sure enough, Jinora looked up, squinting at the air. 

“What is it?” Ikki said. 

“I felt something… Meelo?” Ouch! She was way better than that. “I’m going to meditate,” Jinora said. “Can you keep talking to the spirits? Actually talk to them instead of making them braid your hair.” 

“Why do you get to go have fun in the spirit world, but I have to do all the work?” Ikki said. 

That was about all she could do for now. She tightened her grip on the vines. While she was here, it couldn’t hurt to look for Asami, too. It’d make her feel better knowing where she was. 

Not in the city. Not on Air Temple Island, either. She was… on the prison island? She must have gone there after Korra missed their lunch date, worried half to death. 

She went back to Jinora, who was still meditating. She must be in the spirit world, then. Korra released the spirit vine, sat on the ground, and calmed her mind. A familiar buzzing sensation started in her chest, a combination of the jitters she used to get before stepping into the pro-bending arena and falling asleep. It flowed within her, steadily taking up more space, until she crossed the threshold and arrived in a dark grove. Jinora was speaking with a feathered spirit, but ran over to Korra and hugged her when she arrived. 

“You made it out!” Jinora said, running over to hug her. “I knew the spirit that said you had been eaten by a jelly shark was lying. Everyone knows jelly sharks can’t stand the cold water here. Are you okay?” 

“I’ll be fine,” Korra said. “I need a vial of spirit water before I can get back in the game, though. I’m on the edge of the spirit wilds, half a mile northwest from the portal. And I need Lin to get someone to clear out the meatpacking district. Nanbak’s hiding there. Nanbak is—”

“Heibing delegate, has a spirit problem, on the run? Mako already has some guys looking for him.” 

“You’ve been busy,” Korra said, patting Jinora on the shoulder. “How is it that you always know what to do when I’m in a tight spot?” 

“That’s what makes me a spirit master,” Jinora said, with joking sagacity. “Sit tight. Kai will be there soon.” 

*** 

Kai was there in barely half an hour, with a vial of spirit water in his bag. 

It was by far the most disgusting bit of healing she ever had to do on herself—and that was including bending the poison out of her nerves. The black stuff kept corroding the spirit water and seemed to be everywhere: caught in the striations of the muscles of her eye, trying to escape through the optic nerve. Even worse, it burned as she washed it out. Even after she ran the last of the vial over her eyes, they throbbed and itched as though she had rubbed them with poison ivy. When she opened her eyes again, the only thing she could make out was a hideous, orange line piercing the sky. She shut them and stumbled out to the ocean, purifying the water as fast as she could before drawing it over her face again. 

Better. Still raw, but at least the evening sun didn’t look like someone holding fire up to her face. She flicked the tainted spirit water onto a rock. 

“Gross,” Kai said. “Can I come with you to the meatpacking district?” 

“Sure,” Korra said. It wasn’t as though she could have stopped him. Kai was sneaky like that. “Don’t do any crazy stunts this time, okay?” 

He saluted her, and handed her a new glider staff. “Here,” he said. “Jinora said they found yours broken on an island somewhere. I picked up one from the practice room.” 

“Thanks,” she said. She snapped it open. It was old and beat up in the sad, casual way all beginner’s practice equipment was, and on the short side for her, but it was more than usable for now. She’d have to build a new one for herself later. 

It was a short ride down to the meatpacking district. Mako was there with a team of five other officers. He hugged her when she landed. 

“We’ve cleared out most of the workers,” Mako said. “And one of our men confirmed he’s in the last warehouse. How do you want to do this?” 

“He’s more of an icebender than water,” she said. “Watch out for any sudden temperature changes and avoid hand-to-hand combat if you can. Mako, you take point. Kai and I will go on your signal. Are you guys ready to go?” 

“Ready,” Mako said. 

“Let’s go,” she said to Kai, and took off. Mako’s officers were shortly behind them. Two of them went around to the back. Mako and three others were at a side entrance. Mako looked up at Korra, then kicked down the door. 

Korra metalbent the roof and jumped down. Rows and rows of skinned corpses hung by their haunches from the ceiling and rails, and blocks of ice lined the walls. 

“I see him!” Kai said. “Southeast corner!” 

Blocks of ice rumbled and came flying at her. She clenched her fists and knocked them back to the walls. She kicked the ground and closed her eyes. Nanbak was on the move, trying to get out through the back door. She bent the metal rails holding the meat downwards, sending huge carcasses crashing down on him. 

She had him now: his leg was pinned beneath one of the carcasses. He threw another block of ice at her. She swept it to the side, catching it in her momentum and pivoting to the left, then another block in the same way, moving closer each time. 

She needed to get the spirit out of him. She tugged at the ice she had just cast aside, making it jump into her hands, molding it back into water. Then long needles of ice exploded from a frozen carcass, piercing her arm and calf with icy needles; the sudden, stinging pain threw her off-balance, long enough for Nanbak to get out from under the carcass and vanish into a row of swinging bodies. 

“Mako, he’s coming your way!” Kai said. 

She saw the flames, the dark blur of his arms and legs dodging a knife of ice shooting from a carcass, wheeling in the air as he flipped over Nanbak’s dark green back. Then he shouted in pain and a burst of blue lightning arced high, then shorted out. Kai veered off to dodge, then pulled high suddenly. Nanbak had leapt onto the metal rack and flung ice at him. Then he jumped onto the roof. Kai was in pursuit. 

“I’m going after him,” she said. 

She rocketed up to the rooftop. Below, Mako and some police officers were running to the exit facing the water. She swung up to the roof. Kai had landed and was pushing Nanbak closer and closer to the edge of the roof. Nanbak had ice gathered up around his arms and chest like armor, but he was running out. Korra shot long streams of fire, their power strengthened by strong winds. That was enough to force Nanbak to his knees to prevent himself from falling. 

“Give it up,” she said. “We’re taking you in—”

He opened his mouth and a spear of ice, longer than it ever could be, shot out. She caught the ice with her own bending and threw it back. By then, he had already leapt off the roof and into the water. His shape moved dark beneath the surface. Then he emerged again, encased in ice, and jetting off fast to open water. 

Mako and the officers were below them, talking in their serious police officer way. She jumped down to join them. 

“Korra,” Mako said. “I’m sending Minyoung to get a radio. We can get the navy.” 

“We don’t need to involve more people in this,” Korra said. “The spirit he’s using is too strong. I need to separate them. Get the White Lotus on the radio and tell them to move Kuvira to the backup site. If we get an air bison, we can catch him over the water. I might be able to purify him before he figures out Kuvira’s not there.” 

“Kuvira might try to escape,” Mako said. “It’d be the perfect opportunity.” 

“She wouldn’t leave without rubbing it in my face.” 

Kai left to get his bison. An officer brought her and Mako a radio. After they finished making their plans, one of the White Lotus sentries said, “Ms. Sato wants to speak to you. Hold on.” 

There was a crackle of static as the microphone changed hands. Then Asami’s voice came through. “Are you all right?” 

“I’m okay,” Korra said. “Asami, you have to get off the island.” 

“I am. I’m taking Kuvira to the backup prison on the cove.” 

“No, I meant…” 

“I know what you meant. Believe me, I wish I were back in Republic City right now, too. But no one knows whether it’ll be safe to take a boat into the open water with Nanbak heading this way. I’ll keep Kuvira safe until you get here. They have a chi blocker to help with transport… Hold on.” More static. “Korra? Are you still there?” 

“I’m here,” Korra said. 

“I overheard the White Lotus talking about Nanbak. They say that he’s using a strange kind of icebending. And I thought… Kuvira had the right idea with her metalbending. It’s portable and versatile. There are all kinds of ways you could contain him if you used that technique.” 

She was silent for a longer time than she wanted to be. “Did she suggest that?” 

“No. Why? Would it matter if she did?” A creeping note of frustration. Then something that sounded like a sigh. “We’re moving out. I love you. Stay safe, okay?” 

*** 

There wasn’t enough time to find a good source of weapon-grade metal. She took the roof and flooring she had torn up from the warehouse onto Lefty, and tried to make something of it. The roof was light and soft, an aluminum alloy, but the flooring was decent steel. Okay for a beginner’s Water Tribe machete, like the one Sokka had all those years ago. She’d rather use her own bending powers, though. She had four different types of bending under her belt; relying on metalbending alone didn’t seem like it’d get her too far. 

“Hey,” she said as she stretched the steel, trying to figure out how Kuvira had done it, how she was able to move those sheets so fast. “How did you learn lightningbending?” 

“The Triad got me started and the factory got me good enough to work there,” he said. “I got a few more lessons after I joined the force. You want to learn?” 

“I don’t know. My firebending master told me I’d never be good at it because I’m ‘too emotional,’ but I think he was just afraid I’d end up killing someone. But then I met you and… No offense, but you’re too uptight to be unemotional.” 

“How am I _not_ supposed to get offended?” Mako said, crossing his arms. “The teacher at the police academy said that lightning’s always looking for a place to go, both inside you and outside you. It’s not that you’re too emotional to be a lightningbender. But you have to form an easy path for it to travel through. How did they teach you firebending? Finger snapping? Breathing? Doing forms for ten hours straight until you get something?” 

“I don’t remember,” she said. “I wanted it to be there, and it was. What? It’s true.”

“All right, hotshot. Put your hand out.” 

“Ow!” He picked up one of the metal sheets she had strewn around the harness and held it up. She took it and— “Oh, nice one,” she said, pulling her hand away and shaking it to make it stop tingling. 

“Firebending starts at one point, but lightningbending has two. If you think of your left hand as point A and your right as…” 

“Ow!” she said, having shocked herself. “Did I do it?” 

“I don’t know,” he said. “Move your hands further apart and try again.” 

Nothing this time. She put her hands at belly level, palm to palm. A tiny spark shot through the small gap, then again. She did it a few more times, then stopped. She had never taken an air bison to the prison before, but she guessed they were half an hour away. She wouldn’t have enough time to master lightningbending to use it. She went back to sorting the metal out. One thin sheet after another. 

*** 

The White Lotus had two chi blockers on the island. The first one was a waterbender who had learned it in Ba Sing Se’s Lower Rings during her travels; the second was a nonbender, a pugilist who had learned it from an Equalist workshop. He was young and that seemed to be what made people forgive his earlier misdeeds. He was the one who disabled Kuvira’s arms before the other members put the platinum bracers around her forearms and hands. Her arms were placed behind her back. 

“And this should keep your chi from flowing to your legs without impeding your ability to run.” He pressed a few points along Kuvira’s spine and ribs. Her knees buckled, but she caught herself. Beneath her prison garb, her muscles flexed in a familiar way. Showing off. 

“Look at that,” she said to Asami. “Now they think I can bend platinum.” 

They left in two small motorboats to the forest on the other side of the cove, with four people each. The prison was three miles inland and the road had no path, just trail markers. Wooden poles painted different colors on each side. As they passed, the White Lotus guard would turn the poles in a different direction, but never to the same color: red for one pole that had once faced white, green for blue, blue for purple. 

They marched the three miles without stopping. She recognized the prison grounds once they got closer. It was built inside a small cave, the entrance slightly recessed and disguised with natural growth. Inside was a cell made of wood, each plank enormous and thick, and held together with clever platinum screws and beams. The amenities weren’t great, but it had held Kuvira while the prison ship was being prepared, and the prison ship had held her while her tower—which Kuvira no doubt did not think of as hers—was being constructed. It would do until Korra did her work. 

She wondered if Korra was already on the island, or if she had caught Nanbak out on the water. The tower was no longer visible through the trees, and clouds advanced over the island and out to the city, night creeping along their low bellies. Nothing could be seen from here. Thunder, the sharp, snapping kind that came from lightningbending, clapped from the bay. 

Kuvira was on a wooden bench, arms still bound behind her and boredom stretched across her face. They were alone, more or less. The White Lotus guards were either preparing the jail or checking the perimeter. Kuvira met her eyes, then looked away; then looked again. “Are you worried?” 

“No,” she said, annoyed with herself for having looked too long. Now she was stuck in this conversation until one of the guards relieved her. 

“Why not?” 

“If you’re trying to make me say I think she’s going to lose, then don’t bother. I believe in her. I always have. Is that all?” 

Thunder again, but more distantly. Kuvira looked up. Her eyes, pretty and dark, narrowed in consideration. “They say that after Fire Lord Azula struck down Avatar Aang, the skies went black. It thundered for almost a week.” 

Sentries were coming towards them, to take Kuvira back to the cell. 

“Mako’s on her side,” Asami said. 

“Don’t be single-minded,” Kuvira said. “Look up at the sky. Feel the wind. The weather will turn bad today. I’m sure of it.” 

*** 

The island and its prison was visible now. Nanbak was almost directly beneath them, slowed by White Lotus traps and benders. Firebenders formed the vanguard, darting in and out, trying to lure Nanbak onto the earth. It was clear from above that Nanbak planned to expand his territory: pulling massive quantities of salt water to the island and freezing it, foot by foot. 

“We have a good shot of his back,” Korra said. “Mako, can you hit him?” 

“We’re too far away,” he said. “I’d need to be closer. A lot closer. If you could turn the metal into a lightning rod and somehow get him high up, then I’d be able to hit him.”

“That’s a lot of ‘if,’” she said. “I like the lightning rod idea, but he’s not going anywhere.” 

“Get him to the top of the tower.”

“That’s the biggest ‘if’ of them all!” She gripped the side of the saddle as Kai banked hard to the west. A giant chunk of ice sailed past them, then another. She fit one of metal gauntlets on her forearm. The other one she turned into a spear. Her father had shown her how to use a warrior’s weapons, and while she could control the weight and balance of the metal at will, it still didn’t feel right. The ones she was used to throwing had wooden shafts and bone or metal heads. She’d have to adjust her technique. “I’ll go into the Avatar state and break his contact with the water by force. Mako, be ready to shoot once the lightning rod’s ready. Get Lefty as high up as possible. I don’t want anyone else getting hit.” She stood up, just in time for Kai to shove them straight into a cloud. There was nothing but gray all around her; then the northern side of the island appeared, the western point covered in ice and Kuvira’s tower still untouched. She took a deep breath and jumped straight down, not bothering with the glider. In the Avatar state, she wouldn’t need it. 

She clicked into the Avatar state barely a second after she jumped off the bison. It was a different kind of strength than choking out a bandit in a neck lock, or ripping open a mountain face. No furious pumping in her back or arms, no realizing she could have made that hit if she had just tucked her knee closer to her body, extended her reach more, whipped her hip around faster. Nothing but think, happen. 

Air swelling around her to slow her descent. Nanbak’s hand moved. She was already elsewhere, out of the path of his blow. She kicked out as she was falling, high and then low, and when his feet left the ground, arms flung back for balance, she swept him up in a ball of air. She opened a gap in the ball of air and flung the spear through the gap—but he struck, too, using that tiny gap to propel the water beneath her up into a vicious spike. She snapped it in two without a thought. The two halves toppled into the sea. She sealed the ball shut. 

The water beneath her frothed, gunked up with black. She held her breath and yanked fresh water to the surface, freezing it and sliding to more solid ground. She pushed him higher and higher, until light flashed and an explosion of sound broke her control over the sphere. She reformed the sphere just before he crashed, lowering him onto the ice. Unconscious, not dead. Good. She brought the channel of fresh water she had tapped into earlier up through the ice, and started the familiar motions. 

His body lifted up, his mouth eased open, and the white, shining spirit she had seen inside him all those hours ago came peeking out. They were entangled in one another, spirit rooted into the flesh, flesh morphing around the spirit, making a little pocket for it… She’d be able to separate them without killing Nanbak, but it’d be tricky. She gave it another pull, then another. 

“Come on already,” she said. “Don’t you want a piece of the Avatar?” 

A white flash blew from Nanbak’s mouth as the spirit leapt out: a caribou whale, a massive animal with long, spindly legs and a caribou’s head and antlers, but a whale’s sleek skin and wicked teeth. New ice formed instantly, penetrating the ocean water and kicking up a blizzard. She rolled out of the way of its charge, and its teeth snapped audibly by her ear. It stumbled forward, unable to stop its own momentum. A great, jagged wound leaked blood down its back. She broke a few sheets of metal off the gauntlet and threw them into the injury. The caribou whale roared and tried to rush her again, then collapsed when she tore the metal from its back straight through its stomach. 

“Now you’ve done it!” it said, groaning. “Now I’m really done for.” 

“You made it your life against mine,” she said, easing out of the Avatar State. “I wasn’t going to let you kill me. Spirits usually don’t interfere with human affairs. Why are you helping Nanbak like this?” 

“We shared a common goal. I am the spirit guardian of Heibing’s largest and most pure spirit spring. The Uniter poisoned me and the waters. That insult—” 

“If you needed something done, you should have come to me directly. Or sent someone so we could have talked.” She looked over at Nanbak, his shattered leg, the steel spear. “You shouldn’t have used him like that.” 

“The Avatar never would have given up the Great Uniter,” the spirit said. 

It was true. She wouldn’t have. “We can still work something out. The spirit portal’s nearby. I can take you there, if you promise to never come back.” 

It turned its face into the ice and shut its eyes. Then it swung its massive body around, knocking her down with its tail. By the time its head came around again, she was in an awkward crouch, her hips low but head already rising and balance nowhere to be found. Its jaws caught her shoulder, closing in—freezing, ice cold teeth. She formed the gauntlet into a sword, heated it with her firebending, rammed it into its side. Its legs bucked, but it held on, knocking her down with it. They struggled for a while, messily and without any elegance. She sawed through tendon, muscle, and ligament. She hacked it, its teeth bit down, she stabbed, it drove her further into the ice. She had never fought anyone like this before, struggling like a pair of dumb animals across open ground, both of them vulnerable and in pain, and determined to see their opponent die first. 

It wasn’t going to let her go. She yanked the blade out of its flesh and split to two knives. She stabbed the smaller knives into its spine, took a breath, and shot as much lightning as she could. The spirit’s legs went wild and it opened is jaws, just enough for her to pull away and bend a spike of ice through its throat. 

The cold eased up, though the blizzard went on. She clutched her shoulder and lurched over to the ice’s edge. She drew water from deep below, running it over her shoulder and neck, just enough to get the bleeding to stop. Below the water something dark ran, narrow and long. Then it leapt out of the water, bearing its teeth—she blasted it down with fire, and it spun back around into the water. 

She shook her arms out to warm them. “Now what do you guys want?” 

Another creature leapt out, a cross between an eel and a ray. Its skin was covered in the black water, and burned pink everywhere the black wasn’t. Then a slim shark, then a fish, then a centishrimp that dodged her fire, wrapped around her wrist, and scrambled up her arm. 

“It’s me!” it squealed. “Don’t cook me!” Its antennae tilted towards her, tongue flashing from its mouthpiece, in a shrimpy equivalent of a smile. “Are you ready to see Granny now?” 

*** 

The snow changed to rain, atypical for the season: heavy and dark, like summer. Asami had to move into the cave. Her jacket was still in the locker in the prison. She hadn’t expected to be out here for so long. 

A fire was burning in the pit and she sat in front of it and chatted with the guards. One of them had a portable radio and occasionally gave her reports. 

“Avatar Korra’s asked us to stay here for a few more hours,” the guard, Yuan, said. “She’s talking with a spirit right now. Pretty intense.” 

“I thought you said she killed it,” Asami said. 

“Yeah, that was another spirit.” 

“Can I talk to her?” 

“She’s underwater right now.” 

More time passed. Yuan came back with another report. “Negotiations have stalled. We’re going to be here until morning, at least.” He popped off his helmet and shook out his hair. “Whew! Glad you’re around. Otherwise I’d be marching out there all night.” 

Dinner came and went. They all ate the same bland rations and drank water from their canteens, even Kuvira, whose wrists and ankles were now chained in platinum. They hadn’t spoken for a few hours. Kuvira was resting on a straw mat they had stored in the cave and Kuvira had rolled it out and was now lying down on it with her eyes closed. Unlike Asami, who felt exquisitely aware of Kuvira’s various movements and shifts, the guards were more interested in Asami herself. Some of them she knew from Air Temple Island, others she swore she had seen before from some great distance. At the other end of a banquet table at one of those state dinners. Or up close several years ago. 

Yuan, for example. Once Yuan shook his hair out, Asami knew why she was so familiar. Yuan sometimes showed up at Korra’s press conferences dressed up as a photographer. Asami hadn’t recognized him at first in the new clothes, without that prop. 

Thunder from afar. Yuan stopped by again, shivering from the cold. He took off his leather armor and padded clothes, and huddled by the fire. 

“It must be hard out there right now,” Asami said. Yuan shrugged; a bashful gesture that suggested that he might give out more. “Any updates?” 

“She came out of the water, yelled at a police officer, and went back in. Thanks,” he said, accepting the short blanket Asami passed him. “I was only let into the White Lotus two years ago,” he confided. “My teacher told me I’d never be good enough, but here I am.” 

“I can’t believe he said that,” she said. She sensed that Yuan was looking for sympathy and not admiration, and was rewarded by Yuan’s happy smile. 

“I admire Avatar Korra so much,” Yuan said. “After what she did for the Air Nation. I knew I had to get in, even if I had to kill myself. I was so lucky to get posted to Republic City. I even hoped to get a chance to mark her, so I could see how she did it. But right after I joined she left the South Pole without telling anyone and disappeared for six months. And it turns out they stopped assigning marks on her a few weeks after she got in Republic City.” 

“What do you guys do now?” Asami said. 

“Oh, we watch over the Air Nation. Make sure the Avatar’s legacy is being leveraged to her advantage. Some of us accompany her on peacekeeping missions, others are working on learning spiritbending so she doesn’t have to run around the entire world by herself. When I’m not on guard duty, I’m a freelance photographer. I make sure the newspapers don’t use the crappy pictures of her. Ever since the other Avatars were taken out, a dedicated team is working on preserving historical records and finding new artifacts and stuff. And we have a large legal team, too.” 

“Wow! That sounds…” Incredibly ineffective? Completely useless? As though none of the results of all this work was ever going to materialize in a meaningful way? “So interesting.” 

“Am I interesting?” he said, leaning towards her. 

From the jail cell came a guffaw. 

“I’m seeing someone right now,” Asami said. “And she’s wonderful. The best woman in the world.” 

Realization crept onto his face. Then his face went red. “You’re Ms. Sato, aren’t you. I thought—I thought you were a journalist…” He grabbed at his helmet and armor, ears furiously red, and scrambled back out into the rain. Asami looked over at Kuvira. She was sitting up, eyes open. Smiling slightly, not mocking anyone, not ruining anyone’s life. A sympathetic, but amused, kind of look. 

They were both women, after all. As strange as it was to imagine, Kuvira, too, must have had suitors. Kuvira raised her cup and Asami raised hers. Kuvira drained the cup, then laid herself down again. 

It wasn’t long until Yuan came running back, helmet on but the rest his armor not tied down and flapping along the bottom of the chest plate, his greaves. The white padding beneath the leather was bright red with blood. 

“They’re dead!” he said, his legs shaking even as he got into stance. “Dead!” 

“Wait!” Asami said. She had seen earthbenders do this before, just before they pulled a wall up. “You can’t trap us in like this!”

“They come from the water, and there aren’t enough men to lead the prisoner to the island. This is the safest place for you both. I need to find Nori. He has the radio.” 

He sealed the mouth of the cave shut, leaving her and Kuvira alone. 

*** 

How much time? How much time? No way to tell. The fire was still burning. They had enough wood to have light until tomorrow night, plus four torches, two which were already burning. They had a limited amount of water and rations that could last, by her estimate, two days. 

Her immediate concern was running out of air. When she went to put out the fire, Kuvira said, “Wait. The cave extends below this point. We won’t have to worry about air.” 

“Not that much further,” she said, frowning. She took one of the torches from the front wall and walked to Kuvira’s cell. She had been in here a few times to take measurements and supervise the construction. Most of the back had been hollowed out by earthbenders. The cell floated on wooden planks over a cavernous nothing. 

Kuvira rapped the ground with her knuckles. Asami put her hand on a gap in the floor boards. Air came up, cold and quick. And she could hear something else, too. Water. But not from the rain. 

“What is that?” she said, kneeling onto the ground and putting her ear to the floor. Kuvira did the same. “Running water?” 

“It’s just passing through,” Kuvira said, without much certainty. 

“There’s an aquifer nearby,” she said. “The rain must have flooded it.” 

“There’s nothing we can do about it now. Let’s take shifts. I’ll take first. I’ll give you a report when you wake up.” 

“All right,” she said. It wouldn’t make much sense for Kuvira to lie at this point, and she could use a rest. If Kuvira was right, the water would pass right under the cave and further below, until it reached the sea. 

She shut her eyes and laid on the rock floor, but couldn’t sleep. She kept jerking awake, convinced she was about to fall, or convinced that some cold drop of water was falling against her neck. After trying this for a while more, she got up and listened to the water again. Then she looked over at Kuvira’s cell. She had fallen asleep, but opened her eyes when Asami approached with a torch.

“What is it?” she said. 

“I’m looking for a way to see what’s beneath us.” They couldn’t just bend the ground every time they needed to do maintenance. She walked all the way to the end of the wooden ground, and saw a narrow cut out. She lowered the torch, saw water pooling below. A rope ladder was curled up on top of the hole, like a snail. She tossed the ladder down and climbed down. 

The water was knee-high, but slow moving. Blacker and darker than any water she had ever seen. She couldn’t tell, but it seemed similar to that black sludge Nanbak had left behind everywhere he went. 

It was coming from the back wall through a narrow, flashing crack. She walked over to it to get a better look. When she raised the torch to the crack, a giant yellow eye stared back at her. She swallowed her scream of surprise. It pulled back, then stuck long, digging claws through the crack. A gopher crocodile? It left black marks on the rock. It scraped at the rock, widening it slightly. The water spilled faster. 

“What do you want?” she said. 

It opened its narrow jaw and let out a horrendous scent. The scent of something dead. 

She went back up the ladder. 

“We should go. There’s a hostile spirit down there.” 

“And I thought the Avatar was supposed to lead us to a grand age of spirit-human peace.” 

“Do you have your bending back?” 

“Yes. But I can’t use it to get out without any earth or metal. You’ll have to find something I can use.” 

She went through the supplies. There was the flint for the fire, a small knife for cutting food… There had to be an ax for cutting wood. Surely they hadn’t bent the trees down. Whatever they had used, it wasn’t here. 

Asami searched the rock floor, but the walls of the cave had been polished to prevent loose rocks from falling. It was the same down below. She tossed a few rocks, the flint, and the knife into Kuvira’s cell. 

“That’s all I could find,” she said. “Will that be enough?” 

Kuvira didn’t respond. She rotated the rocks in the air, spinning them faster and faster, then caught them from the air. Then, with her bending, she turned the rock and metal into a spinning saw. Every few seconds she had to stop and remake the blade, but after some work, she was able to cut through two of the bars. 

“Wait,” Kuvira said. “It’d be pointless for us to leave this prison, just to be chased down by an angry spirit. Let me fix the wall.” 

“Are you sure? I don’t have the key to get you out of the fetters.” 

“I used to be a dancer and an acrobat, you know. This is no problem.” She went down the rope ladder. A moment later she came back up, panting. “I closed the wall,” she said. “It’s still digging. Why does the Avatar want to bother with spirits at all? They disgust me.” 

“Most of them are much nicer. I’ve been to their world before. It was beautiful.” Select parts, at least. 

“They must be offloading their vermin onto us, then.” 

Kuvira took down Yuan’s wall with ease. And once they were out in the wilderness, getting soaked by the rain, Kuvira stared at the scene out before her, not looking happy or unhappy, only a little bewildered and increasingly wet. Asami watched Kuvira carefully, then said, “Aren’t you going to run?” 

“No. That doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you, if I want to be alone.” 

“Why do you want to test Korra like this? What else does she need to prove to you until you admit that you’ve lost already and stop trying to hurt her?” She dodged Kuvira’s punch, grabbed onto Kuvira’s wrist, and spun her around, twisting Kuvira’s arm behind her back. She put her boot against Kuvira’s knee and put pressure, slowly. Then she released Kuvira and stepped away from her. The torch had fallen from her hand. She picked it up and blew the dirt off of it. The fire slowly stirred back to life. 

“You’ve been given more second chances than anyone else I know,” she said. “So stop it. Just stop it.” 

*** 

It didn’t take them long to find why there were no White Lotus guards anywhere. The first two guard posts they checked had signs of a struggle, and an evacuation to higher ground. The third, just behind the cave, had a dead White Lotus guard, her throat torn out and hideous spirits, black with pink skin and blood showing through the cracks of their scales and armor, chewing on her. Flesh between their teeth, visible even in the torchlight. Kuvira raised her arms high, and drew a pyramid of stone to trap them. 

“There’s a river nearby,” Kuvira said, her head cocked east. “Let’s scout the other White Lotus guard posts. We might find a radio. The Avatar will come if we call for help.” 

“Yuan said that she was doing negotiations underwater.” 

“I’m sure when she hears your voice, she’ll surface right away.” She couldn’t have sound more patronizing if she tried. 

“There should still be nine other guards,” Asami said. “Where are they?” 

“Their trail sign says northwest.” 

“You figured them out?” Asami said.

“It’s not so hard. They play a game with poetry and cards, one of those games where just about everyone knows a handful of the poems. Even a kid like Bolin knows a few. With some effort you can memorize just about all of them. The markers are gathered in clusters of three. The marker with two of the same color is the dud. The dud pole indicates which orientation the poles are in. Depending on the orientation they’re in, the one north of the dud is the marker and the one east of the dud is the direction the last guard took, or vice versa. The direction markers have sides painted that correspond to a card containing a poem with a direction and a color. _Your slipper disturbs the moon, tossed by your hand into the pond… The moon is cleansed. My love rides the blue ripples and breaks against the lip._ So, blue means southeast.” 

“How did you get ‘blue mean southeast’ out of _that_?” 

“It’s a trick. The poem’s central image is blue running over white, but the love is dying. The water travels until it hits the earthen lip. Earth’s champion in the heavens is west, but the slipper image indicates that we are to focus on the foot of the constellations, which points to the southeast.” 

“That’s insane,” Asami said faintly. 

“Oh, they probably have it memorized in a much simpler manner,” Kuvira said. “They might even have a catchy mnemonic. But I’ve had nothing to do but watch and listen to them for the last year. If you think I’ve lost it, then take the lead. I’m the one in chains, after all.” 

If she made it back home tonight, she was going to drink enough wine to kill a horse. “Northwest it is,” she said. 

Northwest took them through tall, hollow grass and thin, white trees, up a hill. Part way there, a strong wind bent the grass nearly flat. A shadow crossed over them; Asami extended her arms. Her torch lit up the chest and arms of a man. She felt a wooden shaft graze the back of her hand. She leaned away, running the back of the hand holding the torch further down the shaft, while bringing her opposite hand up until it touched the wood. She whipped her shoulders forward, ripping the spear out of her attacker’s grasp, and fell on top of the attacker, heel of her hand positioned against his throat. But instead of skin she felt scales and gills. 

Claws slashed at her arm. She cried out, drove her palm into his throat, drove it in like she was trying to pop his head off. A chunk of earth smacked into the sentry’s head, and he went still. Something black jumped from his mouth to Asami’s arm, bounding up to her shoulder before getting tangled in her hair. Kuvira snatched it in her hand and crushed it. Then she began to laugh, laughing until she was doubled over. 

She leaned against a tree, resting her forehead against it, and said, “I could disappear! I could disappear here, and no one would ever be able to find me! There’s a whole network of caves running under our feet. If I escaped now, you’d never be able to catch me. I could be long gone before the Avatar knows it. Or fish food.” 

“You’re not going to bend your way out of those chains any time soon.” 

She shook her wrists to make the chains jangle. “Don’t be such a killjoy.” 

There was another trail marker, not far from the unconscious White Lotus sentry, pointing them north. They followed the trail to a group of four other unconscious sentries and two dead ones. The radio was trapped beneath a corpse and Yuan. She liberated it and immediately started fiddling with the dials. 

“This is Asami Sato. I’m with Kuvira at the prison site. We’re being attacked by spirits. We have at least three dead, multiple injured. We need back up and assistance right away. I repeat, this is Asami Sato. Kuvira and I are being attacked by spirits. Multiple sentries dead or injured. We need immediate assistance from Avatar Korra.” Nothing. She switched channels and repeated her message. Then she gave Kuvira the torch while she took a look at the radio. She gave it a shake. Had the blood damaged the radio? She didn’t have a toolkit with her, or anything that would help her reach the outside. If this didn’t work, then—she didn’t want to think of then. 

“Asami? Asami, this is Tenzin!” Static. “Korra… spirits… We’re sending for Korra right away, but … hours. Stay strong. Airbenders are… but the storm… can’t break through. Hello!” 

“Tenzin?” she said. “Tenzin, we might not hold out that long. Tenzin!” 

Silence again. She slung the bloody radio over her shoulder and took the torch back. 

“We’re not safe here out in the open,” she said. 

“So what?” Kuvira said. “You want to go back to the cell?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what to do.” 

Kuvira rubbed her hands together. She wet her lips, or just wanted to get the rain off her face. “It’s dry and it’s secure, except for that spirit waiting for us,” Kuvira said. “If that spirit breaks through, it will likely overwhelm us and we’ll be dead before the Avatar can reach us. On the other hand, out here we are unlikely to encounter the spirit beneath the cell, but more likely to be attacked by these small fries. My seismic sense isn’t as good as Suyin’s, but if we go further inland, we’ll reach a forest. We can hide in the trees.” She came close to Asami, and rubbed her shoulder. “Stay strong, soldier. We’ll be safer once we have the high ground.” 

“Thanks,” Asami said. She tensed almost immediately afterwards, expecting Kuvira to sneer and push her to the ground. She would have recognized that person much more easily than the woman who smiled at her, her mouth resetting to neutral just a second faster than her eyes, her face unable to hide the faint sourness of her mood; even so, her ragged charisma fluttered around her shoulders. 

Asami was struck by how easily she could see Kuvira as a young woman, helping her teammates and comforting her dance troupe after a hard practice. Where had that woman gone? Had she been there when Asami and Korra had made their first visit to Zaofu? Had she been the one to step into the role of the Great Uniter, only to be usurped by the woman she turned into? Some unfathomable gap separated those women; just as a gap split her father between the man who raised her and the man who would have rather seen her dead. 

What would her father say if he knew how much she loved the Avatar? If he knew just what they got up to in bed, if he knew how much she enjoyed pleasing Korra, or how often she had allowed herself to be ravished against some flat surface? He’d see it as rape. He was so fixated on the experience of his own helplessness when her mother died that he’d never be able to conceptualize a relationship between a bender and a nonbender as anything beyond that. Yes, Korra could burn her to ashes or crush her between massive slabs of stone—but so what? Some lank-haired stranger could drug her drink and drag her unconscious body into a dark room, or hold a knife to her throat and tie her up and violate her in the cover of night. What could wealth, preparation, or hope do against that? 

Evil was a common failing, not the exclusive provenance of benders. She wasn’t going to spend her entire life holed up in a bomb shelter cowering in fear of what might happen. And even knowing this, she loved her father. She loved Korra, without ever meaning to stop.

She wondered what Kuvira couldn’t let go of that made her so hard. 

*** 

The trees on the hill were much larger than the ones by the jail. She had to help Kuvira up the tree. The chains limited the reach of both her arms and legs, and though she hid it well, the prolonged exertion had weakened her, too. Once they were safely up the branches, she began to fiddle and tweak with the radio again. Every now and again Kuvira would let out a great sigh, then another, while staring up at the rain clouds. 

“What is it?” Asami said. 

“Do the Avatar’s eyes glow in bed?” 

“If you didn’t want to say anything, then just ignore me.” 

“I was trying to be friendly.” 

“This isn’t the soldier’s barracks. My friends don’t talk to me that way.” 

“You remind me of Baatar Jr. He said the same thing when our garrisons joined up during mandatory service. ‘How’s your mom, Baatar.’ ‘We’re not friends! Go away!’” 

She would’ve preferred being compared to Baatar Sr. She adjusted the channels again. 

“I’ve been thinking about what will happen to me when the Avatar sends me back to Zaofu,” Kuvira said. “Baatar is allowed to walk free, or so they say. I wonder if they’ll let him visit.” 

“Do you actually love him?” she said. 

“Did you think I was just using him to get closer to Suyin?” Kuvira said. “It’d be simpler for everyone if it were. We loved each other, but he’s chosen his family over me.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Kuvira was quiet. Then she said, “Do you think the Avatar will send me back to Zaofu?” 

Oh boy. “I don’t know. She was against it this morning.” 

“Now that she knows what Heibing will do to obtain me, I know. She has to send me back or risk the destruction of her city. I don’t blame her.” 

“Keep it it together, okay?” Another burst of static from the radio. Then a loud cracking noise from further down the hill. The tree shook beneath them. The rain had slowed down now and the visibly had improved, but from here, she couldn’t see a thing. 

“How long has it been since you reached Tenzin?” Kuvira said. “He said it’d take the Avatar hours. Hasn’t it been that long?” 

“I guess not,” Asami said. She went back to twisting knobs on the radio. Kuvira took it from her, tapped the side with her fingers, and gave it back to Asami. This time it cracked to life. “How did you do that?” 

“Suyin’s hopeless at wiring. She always had me and Baatar mucking with the electrical systems in her palace. Is it working?” 

“Let me see.” She set the frequency for Air Temple Island again. “This is Asami Sato. Requesting an update. Kuvira and I are still safe. We’ve relocated to the forest and are awaiting rescue. Is anyone there?” 

“Greetings, stranger,” Rohan said, and made a fart noise with his lips. 

Asami put her face in her free hand. “Rohan, please get your father.” 

“Daddy’s in jail right now.” 

“I don’t think that’s true,” Asami said. Where was Meelo when you needed him? “Where are your sisters? Is Korra nearby?” 

“Avatar Korra’s on a special mission!” 

“Just shut it off,” Kuvira said. “He’s not going to tell us anything useful.” 

She couldn’t exactly disagree with that. “Rohan, get your mother or one of your sisters,” Asami said. “Tell them that Asami is—” 

The radio sparked and gave off smoke. Asami let out a yell and dropped the radio from her hand. When she picked it up again, it was dead. If it was a short… if it… If… She set it aside. 

“What was that?” Kuvira said, standing. She sat back down. “Must’ve been my imagination.” 

“What—” The tree rocked, hard, as something slammed into it. Asami grabbed onto the tree trunk. Kuvira’s chains clanged together. The tree shook again. Asami looked straight down. That gopher crocodile from beneath Kuvira’s cell was now clawing at the tree, growling and practically frothing at the mouth. It was trying to climb it, without much success. 

“I have an idea,” Kuvira said. “Entomb it. You act as bait and I’ll bend it into the ground.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Don’t you trust me?” 

“I’m not jumping down there on blind faith—”

This time when the tree shook, Kuvira fell, pitching backwards. She caught herself on a lower limb. She was still out of reach from the gopher crocodile, but the limb she was on now was a dead branch. Asami climbed down to get closer to Kuvira. Each time the gopher crocodile hit the tree, she thought she could hear the branch Kuvira was holding onto breaking away. 

“Try to get closer to the trunk,” Asami said. “I’ll pull you up.” 

“No thanks,” Kuvira said. “Blind faith.” 

“This is completely different,” she said, exasperated. Was she dealing with a grown woman or a toddler? 

Another hit. Kuvira bobbed dangerously on the branch; then, her face pulled in concentration, inched forward. Asami extended her hand. Then the branch snapped off. Kuvira plunged through the air with a shout, but caught herself again—no, her chains tangled around another limb, leaving her dangling upside down, just barely in reach of the spirit. It seemed to recognize this. It went directly under Kuvira, circling her. 

She threw the radio at the spirit’s head. When that didn’t work, she took off one of her boots and chucked it, too. Kuvira was still swinging by her chains, but she had one leg hooked around the tree and was struggling to get her other one around it, too. The gopher crocodile was sniffing around the tree, searching for Asami. She threw another boot at it, and now she had its full attention. It rammed into the tree again, nearly knocking Kuvira loose. Asami’s heel slipped; before she could adjust, the gopher crocodile hit it with a furious swipe, and she fell. She tried grabbing onto another branch, but they snapped in her hand or her angle was bad—now she was on the ground, bruises forming livid all over and no time to pull herself together. The gopher crocodile was already running towards her. 

She got to her feet and ran deeper into the trees. Twigs and pebbles bit into her feet, small holes and rocks made her stumble or fall, but she didn’t stop. She ran between trees, doubled back, got the gopher crocodile to trip over its own feet and fall over. She ran until she broke through to the other side of the forest. Nothing but a sheer drop. When she turned around, the gopher crocodile was waiting for her at the tree line. 

She could barely breathe. Her feet hurt. She should have let Kuvira fall down, she realized. Kuvira, an earthbender, could have fended the spirit off better than she could now. But what would Korra had said if she didn’t at least try? 

She could use the cliff somehow. Get the gopher crocodile to the edge and throw it off. Let it run right at her and jump. She backed away slowly, careful to keep its interest without giving herself away. Its legs coiled, its head lowered, and… 

It stopped. It started to growl. Not at Asami, but at something higher up. Asami looked up. A small circle of clouds had cleared away, revealing the stars. A dark blur plunged from that hole and landed between Asami and the spirit. The ground seemed to cry out from the impact and shuddered. 

The Avatar held her hand out to the spirit and said, “No.” 

The spirit growled. 

“You’re not even corrupted by the black water. You’re just a greedy opportunist.” The spirit grumbled, as though in protest. Korra said, “I know you know Jinora and Ikki. How do you think they’re going to feel when I tell them their friend is attacking people they care about?” Another grumble. She shook her head, then walked towards the spirit. She put her hand against its head. A ring of electric light formed around its neck, then snapped down in the shape of a collar. The spirit howled and began to thrash. She put her hand on its head, stilling it, and said, “You have until sunrise to leave.” 

“Yeah!” a tiny, annoying voice said. “We better not see you again for another three years, bucko! Granny says so!” 

“I told you to shut up already!”

The spirit lumbered away, sticking to the outskirts of the forest and heading down to the water again. Now Korra turned around. She had some bizarre shrimp bug spirit on her face that she now flicked off with a twitch of her hand. Even from here, Asami could smell brine and salt. Something had tried to take a bite out of her. Asami ran up and threw her arms around her, holding on tight. Had it really been less than a day since they last saw each other? She didn’t want to let go. Although she’d have to, if she wanted to make eye contact. 

“You’re hurt,” Asami said, putting her finger against the ringed scar on Korra’s neck. 

“Oh, that? It looks worse than it is… I haven’t had the time to heal it with good water.” Korra took Asami’s hand and said, “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” she said. “Worn out, but fine.” 

Korra nodded. She sent up a few blasts of fire to the sky. “Kai’s going to pick you up,” she said. “I’m going to get Kuvira and bring her back to the prison and after that I’ll… purify the cove and the prison and then… and then I can start the rest of Yue Bay, and…” 

“Bring Kuvira back to the prison,” Asami said. “And then let’s go to Air Temple Island and get some sleep.” When Korra’s chin dipped down, she said, “You’re exhausted! You’re in no shape to fix Republic City in a night. I miss you. You’ll be better after you get some sleep. Okay?” 

“Okay.” She put her forehead against Asami’s shoulder. “Okay.”


	4. Before and After the Gala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A battle of various interests. Also, a blissful lack of convoluted game rules.

Kai brought Asami to Air Temple Island. Korra still kept a room here, although she was only here two or three nights a week at most. Numerous knick-knacks had accumulated on the tables and floor. Free weights, some weird device that swiveled as you did pushups, resistance bands, something that looked as though it was designed specifically to elevate squats from torture to hell exercise. 

It had been a long time since Asami had spent the night here. She sat on the bed and let herself fall sideways into the sheets. She lay there with her eyes open, checking her watch and the moon constantly. 

Korra had said she had been in talks with a massive spirit that lived underwater, a spirit that had some authority over the other water spirits in the bay. They had come to an alliance of sorts, for the time being. And from what she had been able to piece together, Mako and Tenzin were interrogating the other Heibing delegates down at the station; another inspection of the hotel room had suggested collusion between the delegates, to smuggle the spirit inside Nanbak and kill Kuvira. With the water contaminated and spirits on the attack and the whole mess with the White Lotus guards and Kuvira, the charges were racking up high and fast. 

She wondered how those White Lotus guards were doing. It seemed remarkable that they had been so easily overcome by the spirits—though technically she had been chased up a tree and then to the edge of a cliff, and was only alive thanks to the Avatar’s intervention. But Yuan had said that they were looking into it, for whatever that meant. 

The more she thought about the White Lotus, the more irritated she became. Their failure to do more than train Korra, the lack of organization, their numerous goals yet failure to achieve them, all pointed to a failure to thrive. They leaned on the prestige of the Avatar’s title and their long history without thinking how to actively use their resources. The resources they did have, it was a mystery how they got them. 

At first she wanted to see them disbanded. Then she thought about absorbing them into Future Industries, but that made no sense, either. What they needed was a central authority. Someone who could implement widespread reform. She had a few ideas for that. She could ask Tenzin if he knew anyone. Or she could groom someone she knew. One of the sentries. Ikki or Meelo or Rohan, if they didn’t take Air Nation leadership roles. A Future Industries manager—or even herself. It’d be controversial, but she had leverage… 

She woke when the bed sagged. Korra had returned. Her hair was freshly washed, her skin was warm and clean and smelled like the soap the acolytes made on the island. 

“Come here,” she said. “I was just dreaming about you.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“You were a strong, mighty financial statement, vanquishing my least favorite investor.” 

“Line them up!” Korra said, punching the air with vigor. “I’ll take them all down.” Korra smiled at her, a tired, quick motion. 

“Is she safe?” Asami said. 

“Yeah.” 

“What are you going to do with her?” 

“It depends on Raiko. Whether he can put any pressure on Zaofu. If he wants to.” She opened her eyes again and scowled, and took a breath, evidently ready to recollect his latest offense, then exhaled. She kissed Asami’s hair and said, “Let’s talk about it later. Okay?” 

It didn’t take long for Korra to nod off. Asami stayed up for a while longer, unable or unwilling to sleep.

*** 

In the morning, Korra went to Raiko’s summer home a few miles outside the city. Raiko didn’t like heading to Air Temple Island unless for express ceremonial purposes; his office at city hall was still under construction; he didn’t like to hold gatherings in his own home; and nearly every other private meeting spot in the city was either under construction or occupied by Earth Confederation delegates or staked out by the press. 

They met in his office near the back of the house. He had not yet moved there for the year, and all the furniture was covered in white sheets. Dust coated the floorboards and windowsills. The briefing took less than ten minutes; he had been receiving reports and squashing press inquiries all morning, and only a few details were new to him. She expected him to be angry with her, but instead he poured her tea and, once she finished her tea, a glass of good wine. 

“Heibing is finished,” he said simply. 

“You say it like it’s a good thing,” she said. 

“After all this mess about Kuvira, Heibing has no choice but to send a new delegation. We can make them give up the water rights Shazo has been demanding. We may be able to persuade Suyin to formally commit to the Confederation as a sign of her gratitude. If you play this as well as you played the Heibing situation, we could have the Earth Nations under a single flag. Stability at last.” 

“I didn’t plan any of this,” she said. “I just tried to stop it from getting any worse.” 

“Yes, I know. It had all of your customary lack of forethought. But you can’t deny this is a good opportunity. If there is anything I can do to help you capitalize, let me know.” 

“All right,” Korra said. He had said anything. “The spirits I spoke with had some complaints. They want Republic City to reverse the rivers so waste flows away from the Bay and not towards it. And they want a protected area they can rest without any ships disturbing the water.” 

Ah, there it was! The infamous forehead pucker! “How many concessions do you expect us to make to the spirits? We already let them into the city, established the spirit wilds—”

“This was always going to happen,” she said. “It’s been four years since the portals opened, and Yue Bay’s their biggest colony. We just haven’t noticed because no one’s been down there yet. They’ve been waiting to make contact for years. Nanbak was just the last straw. Nothing they’ve asked for seems totally undoable—I mean, it might take a long time, but we can do it.” 

Raiko leaned back in his chair. He set his glasses on the desk. “It’s not so simple. Yue Bay is our lifeblood.” 

“If they were people—”

“They’re _your_ mess.” 

“—you’d be falling over on yourself to give them water and shelter—” 

“If they were people, they would be able to contribute to the city instead of making unilateral demands. Why should these interlopers dictate the course of the city? We don’t gain anything from them. Tourism isn’t enough. What happens if we refuse?” 

“Granny says she can’t promise she can control the spirits in these conditions.” 

“She’s taking us hostage,” he said with disgust. “And look at you! Did you even think that we might not be able to give those monsters what they want, or what happened if we couldn’t? Or did you just roll over to give them what they wanted?” 

“I want to do what’s best for everyone.” 

“You always seem to favor the spirits,” he said. “And always to our detriment.” 

“I know there have been plans to redirect the river anyway,” she said. “You can take some of the profits from the spirit wilds and say that you’re using that to fund the river project. And the shelter…” 

“It’s not feasible,” Raiko said. “Too much commercial activity happens in the Bay.” 

“Then is there somewhere nearby they can go?” 

“If it’s that close, then they can find it themselves.” 

“Ugh!” 

“We can’t have them dictating our course when they only came four years ago,” Raiko said. “And they haven’t even tried to settle themselves into this world. If they have a problem, then they can go back to where they came from.” 

“That’s it?” Korra said. “They’re not going away. We’re going to be stuck with these guys for the next ten thousand years at least. This is our first contact. Is this what you really want me to tell the most powerful spirit in the underwater colony?” 

“You can tell her we won’t change our ways without having a good reason. It’s in your interests to keep the spirits calm, unless you want the people growing dissatisfied.” 

“It’s in _your_ interests to work with the spirits! This isn’t going to be part of your legacy unless I’m there. You’re always going on about how we have to work together to make this city work, but I’m starting to think this place would work better with someone else in office.” Her brain caught up with her mouth a second too late. She got up before she could say anything worse, still holding onto the wine glass. She drained it with a gulp and put it on a bookshelf as she headed to the doors. “Great talk! See you at the gala.” 

Naga was waiting in the same place as before, although she had gotten her paws on something from the water. Korra did a quick check to make sure it was a fish and not a human arm—gangsters in the city were seriously twisted—then jumped onto Naga’s back. 

“Come on, girl,” she said. “Let’s go to the police station.” 

*** 

Nanbak Jin had not died during the night. When Korra had last seen him, he had been delirious and feverish and swore at everything he could think of. She was almost certain he’d pass—but come morning, she got a telegram from Lin. Nanbak had been deemed well enough to be transferred to the Republic City Police Department for interrogation. 

The police department looked more or less the same as always: wooden floors and walls, carefully polished. Metalbending officers in their gunmetal armor, pouring tea for themselves and yawning. Other officers and detectives and secretaries at their desks, occasionally getting up, occasionally staring at the wood grain of their desks and sighing. 

“Politics, spirits, Raiko’s people scuttling around. What’s next? A badger mole army?” 

“Sorry. I’m just trying to save the city. Again.” 

“Just get my station back to normal and we’ll call it even,” Lin said, opening the metal door leading to the long hallway where Nanbak was. “They’re all pinning the blame on Nanbak. Even he’s saying he’s the sole instigator. Bullshit, if you ask me. Raiko wants a signed confession, but he’s refused since he heard Kuvira is still kicking around the tower.” 

“Do I have to get a confession?” Korra said. A headache was beginning to form, right behind her temple. 

“Don’t take my word for it, but if you ask me, getting this bunch to say they’re guilty will make the rest of the negotiations easier for the state,” Lin said, unlocking the door but not opening it. “Lets them say this bunch was a basket of bad apples. Otherwise Raiko’s going to make it hell for them to move forward. Now look tough and get in there.”

Nanbak was standing when she came in. She couldn’t understand why he was let out of the hospital. He looked weak and shriveled, and his hair had fallen out of place, spilling down his neck and over the scar on his forehead. His eyes had a flickering and frightening light. He knew he was defeated, and was ready to die. The interrogation room, with its gray walls and gray floor, only put him in a worse light. 

“I’m glad you’re not as fragile as they say you are,” Nanbak said. “When I heard you brought out the spirit, I thought I had killed you.” 

“Surprise,” she said flatly. She stayed close to the door in case he tried anything funny. He dragged himself to the table, and sat down. The chains on his ankles made a harsh, dark sound. “Are you all right? You don’t look well.” 

“I failed my mission, but I tried,” he said. “Do with me as you’d like. The only thing I won’t do is sign a confession.” 

“Why can’t you sign?” Korra said. “We already know you tried to kill Kuvira. You exactly deny it.” 

“Not that confession. ‘Conspiracy.’ Premeditation. Plotting with the people who came with me. You can’t prove that. If I’ve failed, then I should fail alone.” 

“I get that. You’re trying to take all the responsibility,” Korra said. “You have to think about Heibing beyond your friends, though. What you did doesn’t just look bad for the people who came with you, it makes your whole state look shady. You need to sign it so they can send a new team to work with us.” 

“We don’t want to work with you. It would be better for us to close our borders and turn inward and rebuild.” 

“That’s great and all, but you’re still going to have problems that can’t be fixed without me,” Korra said. “That spirit who died so you two could go on your big revenge bender told me the spring is poisoned. I can bring in a new spirit to your spring and see what I can do to fix it, but I can’t dote on some rogue state that tried to kill my prisoner when there are other things to work on.” 

“You sound like a politician,” he said, looking away. 

“I’m sorry, but what you did was stupid. If you did this for your honor or whatever, that’s fine, but now your state has no spring, no spirit, and no future in the Confederation, except as a scapegoat for Raiko to dump all the northern problems onto,” Korra said. She leaned across the table, offering her hands. “Let’s work together. I can put you and Heibing in a better—” 

He spat on her. Well. Couldn’t expect that to work on everyone. She flicked it off. 

“I want to help no matter what,” she said. “But you’re the one who’s going to decide whether I can. Sign it or not. You’re the one who’s going to decide how to save yourself.” 

*** 

Asami checked the newspapers over breakfast. Future Industries’ stock holding steady in Republic City markets. Varrick Moon Global had gone up for some annoying reason. Was it just because Varrick was in town? He usually had that effect among the investors and traders. 

Let Varrick have his magnets and every crazy idea in his head. She had airships, a completely new design based on principles of flight she had learned from watching airbenders, and salamander suits, and a working prototype for a super-fast, small-scale pneumonic tube systems for hospitals and banks and other large institutions. And she still had more things, things on things, a dizzying array of gears and promises. 

When she was done eating, she went down to the docks to catch the next ferry to the city, where Baatar Sr., Varrick, and Zhu Li were waiting to start the day’s work. At the dock, she saw Hyun handling a reporter in the only way he knew how: standing still and looking bored. 

“Ms. Sato!” the reporter shouted. “Is it true that Raiko has imprisoned the Avatar?” 

“For what?” Asami said. 

“No one knows. But one of our reporters saw the Avatar being taken by Chief Beifong to the interrogation cells.” 

“He’s more likely to exile her from the city or put her under house arrest,” Asami said. It was something of a tradition in both the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, and Raiko hadn’t felt the need to stop it. 

“They say he’s planning both of those, too.” 

“It doesn’t sound like you have a story beyond ‘Raiko and the Avatar in conflict again.’ Sorry. I can’t say anything about it.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, aware that the dazzling effect would distract him long enough for her to make a getaway. 

The day before, Baatar, Varrick and Zhu Li agreed on two final designs for the dome, and arranged to have a team of special metalbenders work overtime to make scale iron prototypes made in the factory and shipped outside the city, just beyond some hills northwest of the spirit wilds, where the prototypes were then assembled and tested during the night. She arrived early, before Varrick and Zhu Li—to be expected, given his habits—and, to her surprise, Baatar, as well. 

She had missed a lot of work. She hadn’t expected Baatar, Varrick, and Zhu Li to get this much done without her. Then again, Varrick did have a history of working fastest when he was doing so behind her back. 

She felt a pang of regret looking at the prototypes. She could see her improvements and suggestions, but nothing in them said Future Industries except for the methods of erection and materials. These were important contributions for sure, but she had lent her time and resources to improve her company’s visibility in the eye of the people. It was important that the people of Zaofu know that she was just as capable as Baatar and Varrick and Zhu Li, and that this evidence be not just a logo tossed on the front, but something structural and prominent. 

These designs were good, she wouldn’t deny that. And she had missed the work for a good reason. She wouldn’t have changed what she did yesterday at all. But it had put her in a tight spot now, and unless she could make good suggestions and move cleverly, she’d lose on a good opportunity. 

“Where’s the chief engineer?” Asami said. “I want a tour on the ground, and a summary of the evaluations and the assembly process in writing.” 

*** 

It was past noon by the time Varrick, Zhu Li, and Baatar arrived. She barely remembered the next few hours. They began talking and debating and then it was as though they were taken over by a strange power. Baatar got out his sketchbook, then Asami took hers out, and ideas, thousands of ideas, came streaming out. 

Their productivity streak went on forever. She showered in the public baths, she bought clothes off the rack instead of returning home to change, she was never more than fifty feet away from Baatar, Varrick, or Zhu Li, she had at least three heated arguments and mediated four screaming rows, she slept for an hour or two at sunset and sunrise and ate directly out of the takeout cartons. Magnet trains, optimization of air travel routes for mid-weight aircraft transportation, a restructuring of nearly all of Republic City’s waterways—and somehow, they even managed to complete the domes. 

They were camped out in a private room of a pai sho parlor, in the middle of creating a blueprint for the first working submersibles, when a messenger came in to tell Baatar that the gala was that night, and Lin had confined all of his children to Air Temple Island. 

They checked their watches, then the clock. It was noon. At the suggestion of sunlight, the full weight of all her put off hangovers came bearing down on her. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate.

“How long have we been here?” Asami said. 

The messenger gave her a kind look and handed her the newspaper. Three days since she left Air Temple Island. 

“This is for this morning?” The messenger nodded. “Ah,” she said weakly. 

Then it was a frantic scramble to find where they had shed their clothes—socks, boots, jackets, the outer layer of their robes—where they had put their wallets, who should develop what, who should take what prints, whether they should announce it as a collaboration, an exchange of lawyer contacts, mumbled apologies from Asami and Baatar over half-remembered fights from two or three nights before, Varrick magnanimously—and, frankly, irritatingly—accepting these apologies. They left first. Zhu Li would get the new plans to the factory and make sure everything was set up. Varrick needed his feet cleaned. On their way out, Varrick shouted, “That was great! I should hire you both!” 

Baatar and Asami stayed behind to clean up. She felt off-balance and faraway. The last few days felt like her childhood dreams coming to life: the work, the frenzy, the realization of her ideas—think, draw, yell, calculate, revise, plan, and it was all so wonderful. She had worked with people on her own level, with ambitions grander than hers that took her away and increased her desire to make newer, better things. No worries about management, finances, or regulations—but it was exactly those things that made these paper drawings possible. 

“The children, the children,” Baatar said. “Junior used to keep them in line for me when things got busy…” He sighed, evidently thinking of the past. 

“I’m jealous of Varrick and Zhu Li sometimes,” Asami said. “This is the only thing they do. They seem so… carefree.” 

“Zhu Li has more worries than you might think, with the way her husband does business. Su supports me in everything. I wouldn’t have half my career if I had to worry about the children all the time. And she knows so much, too—you should see some of her own designs!” Baatar became excited again and reached for a pencil and sketched out one of the buildings in Zaofu and enumerated Suyin’s first draft and its strengths and flaws and how it was eventually implemented into the city plan; it was so fascinating that they forgot that they had to clear the room out, and kept talking about city planning and design until one of the employees came in and asked them to please hurry up. “And with you and Korra…” 

“It’s different for us. Korra’s only interested in it because I do it,” Asami said. “I feel bad, though. I wish I had someone to work with like that.” 

“Oh, I don’t recommend choosing your partner based on their architectural aptitude. My sister did that. Terrible man she married.” He looked glum. “For people like us, when your partner is a bender, it’s very difficult, very difficult to find a way… Su and I were very clear from the start about what we wanted from the relationship. A city, multiple children, she could lead, I’d design…” 

“Korra would never want me to give up Future Industries,” Asami said. It came out more defensive than she wanted it to. 

“Oh, I know she’d never… Korra is a wonderful woman. What I mean is that many talented people… I don’t begrudge them their happiness, of course, they are free to choose as they’d like, but I see it happen to too many good nonbender engineers. They get in a relationship with a bender… And because we can do things benders can’t, and because what we do is create things, it’s too easy to become someone who makes things to make your partner happy. It happened to Junior, it happened to me, for a long time… All I meant, dear, is that your designs are wonderful. I hope you run Future Industries for yourself, too. Not just the Avatar.” He smiled at her kindly, and took her hand, and squeezed it. She accepted it, unsure of whether she should tell him off or whether she ought to listen more closely. Though he would probably write her a letter later to clarify what he meant. She smiled back, then wished she hadn’t. 

*** 

The gala started early in the evening, inside the Pham Theater. Asami mingled inside the reception, one eye out for Korra. She spotted Tenzin’s kids first, Ikki running over for a hug, Meelo bowing and trying to kiss her cheek, and Jinora dragging Rohan behind her, then foisting him off to Ikki to speak to Asami. 

“Korra’s been in the spirit world for the last two days,” Jinora said. “She’s gone to find a spirit for Heibing.” 

“Is she not coming tonight?” Asami said. 

“I can astral project and ask her.” 

“Oh, you don’t have to. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.” 

“She wants to be,” Jinora assured her, and patted Asami’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to realize the resemblance to her father, and before Asami could comment on it, she excused herself to corral her siblings. Asami went to greet her business partners, some of her parents’ old friends, the old society pals. She stopped to speak with Lin, Tenzin, the Beifongs, and Varrick and Zhu Li. She saw some of her friends from the Earth Confederation, either performing at the gala or part of a delegation, people she met during business trips and dealings. Between all of those crowds, business was brisk: she pitched two new proposals, shook hands on five contracts to three different cities, was invited to three weddings and a funeral, and capped it off by securing the biggest display area in this summer’s industry expo in Omashu. 

The whole scene was dreadful. She enjoyed herself. She felt pretty, successful, and influential. She enjoyed these parties and events at one time just for the society scene, but the disconnected feeling that took her that afternoon in the pai sho parlor was stronger than ever. It was business, all of this business. This gala was enjoyable because Future Industries was doing well, because she was the Avatar’s girlfriend. If Future Industries was in the red again, if she was no longer with Korra, if business was bad. Then all this would be miserable. 

None of it felt real. She wanted Korra to be here, to draw from her strength and dispel her deepening sense of unease. She sought out Raiko, but Raiko was avoiding her, and she was sucked into an impassioned debate over Prince Wu’s sexual function, only because she heard Mako’s name dropped and couldn’t escape afterwards as the debate plunged sharply into hereditary rights to rule, whether business should be passed along professional lineages or whether workers had half as many rights as they were proposing in Ba Sing Se… 

Raiko took the podium. Asami broke away from the discussion, relieved, and found her way to Tenzin and Lin. 

Zaofu had pledged a formal commitment to join the Confederation. Shazo’s statesmen, after talks with Confederation representatives and the United Nation’s best, were going to recommend joining. Heibing was to be broken up to East and West. The mountainous West was to join immediately; and the East, it was to be seen whether it would melt away by the end of summer. 

*** 

She left the gala before the dancers came out and took a taxi to the edge of the spirit wilds. Without a second thought, she went through the wilds and to the portal. 

It was a familiar view: the blue-green waters, the tall purple grass, the lilac trees. And no humans in sight. 

“Korra?” she said, suddenly realizing her naïveté, assuming she would walk straight to where Korra was. She took a few more steps through the field and called for Korra again. 

A few spirits stirred. One of them, a flat fish, floated up to her and said, “If you’re looking for the Avatar, she left here ages ago.” 

“Do you know where she went?” Asami said. 

“No,” the flat fish said sullenly. “She only wants the strong spirits.” 

“That doesn’t sound like her.” 

“We think she’s possessed. We heard what they do to spirits in Heibing.” 

She doubted that was what happened, but thanked the spirit anyway. The next spirit gave her a clue: south, to a freezing land. But she would have a hard time getting there. Avatar Korra had asked most of the stronger and larger spirits to leave some space around the portals. But if she wanted a ride, they could send a friend of a friend to ask a larger spirit to take her to the Avatar. 

“Do you lead anyone who asks to the Avatar?” Asami said. 

“Yes! We want to be helpful!” 

“What if someone wants to hurt her?” 

“Then she’ll kill them!” 

“No, no, just don’t take them to her!” 

They talked for a while longer until the larger spirit, a giraffe ox, came by and picked her up. On the giraffe ox’s back, they seemed to cross miles with each step. She barely had time to look: white trees against a pink sky, a burnt out battlefield, red trees in a red garden. Then they arrived at the edge of a bare, freezing landscape. Korra was on her stomach on the green ice, her ear close to the black waters. A black snout was barely visible above the surface of the water, the nose wet and glistening, the teeth small and white. 

Asami had brought a thin coat as part of her outfit, but the cold bit into her hard. She wanted to go straight to Korra, but couldn’t bring herself to interrupt. She could tell by the seriousness on Korra’s face, the difficult and concerned expression, that this involved state problems, and that her presence would not matter in this talk. 

She didn’t know how long she waited. Eventually Korra stood up, cracked her back, and turned around. 

“How long have you been waiting there!” Korra exclaimed, running over and putting her warm arms around Asami. “Am I late for the gala? Did Raiko already—ugh.” 

“I came after Raiko broke the news about Heibing,” Asami said. 

“Yeah, I’m trying to find someone to take over their spring… The whole thing will melt away otherwise, it’ll be awful and I…” She let go of Asami, looking down in a way that broadcast embarrassment. “I missed the gala, didn’t I.”

“It’s fine, everyone was a bore, I barely talked to anyone. It wasn’t worth going without you,” she said. 

“Well, we should go back.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go home?” Asami said. “You look tired. You’ve been pushing yourself pretty hard on the Earth Confederation. After everything you’ve done over the last few days, no one is going to blame you if you take the night off.” 

“I’m sorry for not being there when you got back.” 

“You know that doesn’t matter to me. I mean, I was gone for three days.” 

“Yeah, you called me on the first night. Drunk booty call.” 

“Are you serious?” That was the last time she ever went drinking with Varrick. “What do you think about making good on that call?” At Korra’s guilty look, she said, “What is it?” 

“It’s nothing,” she said. Then, “I spent the whole time you were gone fighting with Raiko and the Shazo people and Su… I’m not good at this politics stuff, I don’t know anything, every time I try to help people, they throw me off or turn out to be assholes—” She took a breath, looking more like herself now that she had gotten that off her chest. She took a step away from Asami, kicked the ground, and sent a chunk of ice flying into the air behind her. She whooped when the ice hit the water, then turned back to Asami, looking refreshed. “You look fantastic. I’m so happy just seeing you. Let me take the best woman in Republic City out for dinner.” 

*** 

They went to a real dive of a place for dinner. Afterwards, they returned to her apartment. Korra made a show of admiring the dress, the jewelry, the bra, but pleaded exhaustion and turned in early. Asami stayed up to document the day’s business, then went to the bedroom. Korra was meditating on floor. 

After a few minutes, she said, “You couldn’t sleep?” When Korra didn’t say anything, she sat on the bed said, “Are you sending Kuvira back to Zaofu?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I think it’s for the best. She and Su need to work things out on their own.” 

Korra opened her eyes. She got up and joined Asami on the bed. “I can’t decide whether I’m doing the right thing. What if there’s no point in having the Confederation? I feel like I just want it because everything that happened in the Earth Kingdom was my fault. Zaheer, Kuvira… If I had been better at tracking down Zaheer, or if I had taken Kuvira out the first time around… If I had come back to Republic City sooner instead of hiding at home… Maybe Kuvira wouldn’t have gone around the Earth Kingdom in her giant train taking over everything.” 

“No, no…” 

“I know, but I can’t stop thinking about it. What if the Earth Kingdom is never peaceful again? What if, what if…” She turned towards Asami, her brow creased and mouth tight, but full of hypotheticals, the whats and the ifs. She moved closer, her head dropping to her chest. 

“The Earth Kingdom wasn’t in a good place when you found it, either,” Asami said. “All you’re doing is giving them a chance to make a change. Anyone would want something different than what they had.” 

“If it fails, millions of people starve, tons of money goes down the drain, and some other dictator might come to take over.” 

“And if they succeed they might end up like Republic City: rich, corrupt, and full of crime. You have to let them try it out before you blame yourself. Besides, who knows what’ll happen five years from now, or ten.” 

“Yeah?” 

“You don’t believe me?” 

“Of course I believe you,” Korra said, utterly serious. “Five years from now. Who knows what might change by then! I might move out of Air Temple Island. Mako could find a girlfriend. And after they break up, we’ll get her here for a threesome.” 

“Or he could _marry_ her.” 

“We could still do it. I mean, you’re so smart and beautiful. So beautiful. All the time. I don’t know how you do it, it’s like you have a special invisible Future Industries hair stylist following you around and throwing glitter whenever I look at you.” 

Asami had heard plenty of these compliments, from strangers, from family, from Korra herself. A pinkness spilled through her, rolling out from her chest and moving out in waves. She reached over for a kiss. One fueled another, each deeper and more heated, until they fell into the bed. 

“Think there’s a sendoff party tomorrow morning,” Korra muttered. “Do you think we should…” Swallowed when Asami ran her nails across her bare chest, kissed her neck. Turned red. 

They were busy for a long time after that, slow and gentle movements broken up by a conversation neither of them could remember when they finished. There was something Korra wanted to say, and as the night crept on, the two of them too tired to do much else but spread themselves out in the sheets, Korra said, “Raiko asked me to spend the summer out of the city.” 

“Then I’m going with you,” Asami said. 

“Really? The entire summer?” 

“Well—not for all of it. I have to go to the summer expo in Omashu. And there’s a conference in the Fire Nation a month after. Aside from that, I have three weeks of vacation time to use and plenty of business contacts in the Earth Confederation. I can expense it.” 

“Okay. I’m glad.” Korra shifted in the bed, turning to Asami. “Did you know he was going to do that?” 

“A little,” she said. Raiko’s dogged avoidance and Korra’s grouchiness had primed her for bad news. She had no idea what had happened between Raiko and Korra, and it didn’t matter. “But it’s… I’m tired of not being there for you. I’m tired of only getting a chance to be with you either because the world is burning down or for a few hours at the end of the day. I miss solving problems with you and spending all day with you.” 

“What was that? It sounds like you’re really into me or something. Is Asami in looove?” 

“You’re terrible! I was serious.” She pretended to draw away, and was happy when Korra pulled her back in. Happy when Korra kissed her chest and breasts, and gave herself up willingly, without any doubt.


	5. The Woman from Zaofu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to a new prison, a trip to the opera, and a night out.

Just before Asami left Omashu, she received a letter from Zaofu. She was working at her desk in the hotel room, all of her suitcases packed, when an unfamiliar White Lotus sentry knocked on the door and gave her the letter. 

“You came all the way to Omashu just to deliver this?” Asami said. “You must have rushed to get here.” 

“It was requested of me,” the sentry said, blushing. He left right afterwards. How had he known where… She frowned and made a note to find out. 

She sat on the bed and opened the envelope. 

_How are you doing? Thank you for your letter. I’ve settled into Zaofu. They have me living in a dome about eight miles away from the city. On the way I met my former minister of agriculture, who was going to sit for a civil service exam in the main city. She told me Suyin has fought to take back everyone who had left Zaofu with me and rehabilitate them in the countryside, then bring them back into general society. I asked her if she was content with this, if she understood that Suyin would never allow her to hold any kind of power; my friend told me she had been promised a magistrate position in the next year, if she scored well. I envy her. Suyin will never allow me the same favor. Though who knows what might change in the next five to ten years._

_Most of what I do is farm. They have me adjusting the soil, fixing their tools, and clearing the fields. I’m alone most of the time, but they allow me to enter the town at certain hours. No one speaks to me here, except to tell me the price of things. In a few months they say they will introduce me into the city itself. I’ve asked if I will be allowed to see a movie, and they told me yes, as long as I went chaperoned._

_Suyin comes to visit sometimes. She’s comfortable now that she thinks she has me pinned. We talk about the work I’m doing, how my days go. She’s ahead of her times in most respects, but her knowledge on agriculture is limited. I wonder when I stopped being impressed by her words. The last time she came I asked her to speak of things she knew more of, I wanted to her to know that I had learned a thing or two over the years—but I said it wrong and we had a bad fight. Her husband visited me, too. I’m hoping I’ll have a chance to speak with Baatar when I’m allowed into the city. I sent him a few notes, but he hasn’t responded to any of them._

_I’ve been following the news from here. Everyone in Zaofu is talking about Future Industries, and Varrick Moon Global, of course. I heard that you are coming to Zaofu in a few weeks, and that your company is planning on establishing a monopoly in the United Republic. If you can manage it, then good for you; but it only goes to show the weakness of a government not sufficiently strong in the center. A monopoly will ruin your good name in the long run. No one can stay in heaven’s good graces for so long. It will come apart in your lifetime and will be your greatest regret. If the rumors are true, of course. If they aren’t, then just take those sentences as some advice from your imprisoned friend._

_Good luck at the exposition._

Asami had sent the first letter as a formality, to express her regrets that she couldn’t see Kuvira off in person. She hadn’t expected a reply—if she had known, she would have worded the letter differently. 

She read over Kuvira’s words once more. Korra hadn’t told her that Kuvira’s handwriting was so nice. Literary but clean, not a stroke of ink out of place. It was addressed to her apartment in Republic City. She supposed the White Lotus had sent some of their own people to watch over Kuvira, and that Kuvira, with her usual good graces, compelled them to obey her. 

She folded the letter, tucked it into her summer jacket, and got her bags. A reply would not be necessary. She was already on her way to Zaofu, anyway. 

*** 

After Korra left Republic City, a few days after the summer festival, they had spent three weeks together in Shazo. By the time they left, Shazo had joined the Confederation, and nearly every state in the northwest followed it. Then they had parted: Asami back to Republic City to handle affairs, and Korra to the southern states to take care of some spirit matters. They had met up two weeks ago in Wanluo, where Asami met with her tin supplier and Korra with some bandits, but hadn’t seen each other since. 

The dome had been erected just before the expo, and Zaofu had made a small model of it to show it off in Omashu, along with the hottest new water pumps and composting tanks, a daring skyscraper design to be tested in neighboring Seki, where it’d be unencumbered by the height restrictions imposed by Zaofu’s magnificent domes, and a beautiful building made of glass. She was eager to see all of it; but more than that, eager to see Korra, who had contrived some reason to stay with the Beifongs for a few days. 

She knew that sending Kuvira to Suyin had been a great relief to Korra. She had thought it was a good decision then, and continued to believe it now, no matter what anyone said, no matter how many times Korra herself questioned the choice. It was clear to her that Korra had held herself responsible for the current state of the Earth Confederation, and keeping Kuvira so close to Republic City had only reinforced this sense of misplaced obligation. Korra had gone to see Kuvira once already, not long after Kuvira had been moved, and wrote to Asami in a good mood now that she was no longer Kuvira’s jailer. 

For Asami, the distance had dampened her initial warmth towards Kuvira. When she thought of Kuvira, she could only remember how frustrating she had been, how offensive and snide. The letter hadn’t changed her perceptions. The tone was almost offensive in its immediate intimacy, the declaration of friendship, the horrid advice—what was she implying, what was the point of it?

*** 

Korra met her at the dock, along with Wing and Wei. Asami recognized Korra from high up, in her Water Tribe clothes, laughing and roughhousing with the twins. When she got off the airship, Korra lifted her up and kissed her, then hugged her, and said, “It feels like it’s been forever!” 

“It was torture waiting for the expo to wrap up,” Asami said, breathless from the force of the kiss, the ferociousness of the hug. She kissed Korra’s cheek, ran her hand along Korra’s shoulder and chest. “Have you been here long?” 

“I’ve been here since yesterday morning. How was the journey, was it rough?” 

“Rough? I came on a Future Industries airship!” 

Wing and Wei were their usual selves, happy to see her. They embraced her in a friendly, muscular manner that reminded her of Bolin, and kissed her cheek with identical pecks. Wing had joined the army and was part way through an officer training camp. He had shown up in uniform, a crisp green outfit with a stiff, stand up collar and bright white accents. Wei was getting into diplomacy and had just returned from Hofeng. 

“And then what?” Asami said. “Are you going to take over after Suyin steps down?” 

The twins had a good laugh at that. 

“Mom has plenty of people to take over for her,” Wing said. “People older and more qualified than us. For now, we’re enjoying the privileges of being little princes.” 

“Besides, can you imagine what kind of person you’d have to be to get on the shortlist?” Wei said. “Kuvira and Baatar were always Mom’s favorites. Look where they’ve ended up.” 

“No point in dwelling on it, right?” Wing said cheerfully. “My ladies. To the house?” 

*** 

The next morning, early, she took a car out to visit Kuvira’s compound. Korra rode next to her and slept the entire way. When they arrived at the town, Korra opted to head to the White Lotus outpost instead of going to Kuvira directly. Did she not want to see Kuvira, Asami asked, and Korra shook her head. She had seen Kuvira the day before yesterday, and had some questions to ask the White Lotus about their duties, if they knew what else was going on in the region, if they knew any interesting bending techniques. All that stuff Asami had said about making the White Lotus useful had made her realize the senior members might have something to teach her beyond optimal stalking techniques, managerial incompetence aside. 

Kuvira was in the fields when Asami arrived. Her skin had darkened from the sun and her hair was put in a braided bun, exposing her neck. With powerful strokes of her arms, she controlled massive blades to harvest the millet. She stopped when Asami got close. 

“Did my letter sound that dire?” she said, but looked pleased. She summoned the blades back to her hands and set them on the ground and turned to give Asami her full attention. “How do I look? Do I seem like a natural farmer?” 

“You still seem pretty military to me.” 

“That’s good.” 

She took Asami to her home, a small apartment inside a manor that belonged to a stern, Zaofu couple, here for the summer and in the city for the winter. She lived separately from the servants of the house. Most people avoided looking at her. The apartment was small, but had enough. It smelled like wood and straw and cooking oil. Kuvira made her some tea and invited her to sit down, pleased to have a guest. 

“How have you been?” Asami said. 

Kuvira rolled her shoulders in what might have been a shrug. “It’s all right. Better than being in the Avatar’s cage. Worse in some respects.” 

“Such as?” 

“I’m lonelier. The White Lotus guards aren’t afraid to talk to me, but there aren’t as many of them. The ones from Zaofu hate me. And of course, there’s Suyin. Living under her order. It wasn’t so bad when I was younger, but things are different. I have my own ideas about how people should live, what the best use of them is.” 

“You said that your friend might become a magistrate.” 

“If I grovel the way Suyin wants me to, I might become one, too. Dealing with stolen ostrich horses, telling people, ‘No, you cannot beat your wife,’ arguing over whether some donkey yak broke this man’s fence before it died or if it died because the fence was broken.” 

“I don’t see what’s so bad about that,” Asami said. “You’d make a difference in their lives.” 

“Suyin wants me to beg for it. She wants me to apologize for betraying her, personally. But it wasn’t about her—not when I left.” She drained her cup of tea and refilled both of their cups. “Your father. If he had lived.” 

It was as though a door had blown shut inside her. “I’m not talking about him with you,” she said. 

“If he had lived,” Kuvira went on, refusing to let her retreat from the conversation. “Do you think he would have wanted to work on the factory floor, assembling one of your cars? And after five years you graciously allow him to be a factory manager. Do you think he’d be happy with that, or would he find it too demeaning?” 

“Yes, he would be.” She tried to drink more tea, but her hands shook and she pushed the cup away from her before she dropped it. Kuvira’s figure seemed to distort in front of her, from a woman in plain clothes to the horrible creature who should have just died, died in that machine she built for herself. “He’d be happy because I’d be giving him something. Because he loved me. Because I’d be giving him a chance. How dare you talk about him. You always try to push my buttons. I ignored it for Korra’s sake, to make sure she’d be safe—but that was cruel, and I hate you, and I don’t understand why I came here when you always hurt people.” 

“Hey, hey, come on,” Kuvira said. She took Asami by the hand and held on, even when Asami tried to pull away. “I’m sorry. I’m a military woman. I respect your father as a soldier who took me down.” 

“My father wasn’t a soldier. He was just a man trying to stop a mad dictator from destroying his city.” She took her hand away from Kuvira, and poured herself more tea. Kuvira’s face flooded with relief, so much that she seemed to sag into the chair—Asami realized with a start that Kuvira had been afraid she’d leave. 

What a stupid mess this was, drinking tea with the woman who killed her father. She looked at Kuvira for a long time. She couldn’t forgive that. Not today, maybe not ever. The second she thought this, her anger lost its hold on her. The heavy pressure in her ears eased up. She wondered how Korra was doing, and that thought calmed her even more. It was fine. She would be fine. She still had something outside of these walls. 

“Do you have anything to eat?” she said. 

“Sunflower seeds, some peanuts—clementines, too,” Kuvira said, hurrying to get them. They ate in silence. Asami asked whether she had heard anything about Baatar yet. Not yet. She asked about the other Beifong children, sulky Huan and the rambunctious twins. The twins had come with their mother a few times. Huan hadn’t, but they were never close. Opal did once, saying once that she didn’t understand why Korra had released her to Zaofu, that she wasn’t ready to forgive even if her mother was. 

“All they want for me to do is go back to the person I was before I realized their mother might be able to move the earth, but she can’t change heaven,” Kuvira said. “I’ll apologize for anything they want, but not for changing. Not for realizing I could be more and have more than what Suyin ever saw.” 

But look at what she could have had! This city, this peace. A family. Instead she had her disgrace, the bitterness of her failures—and the proof of what she could do, what she was capable of, if she threw everything off of her, if she let nothing stop her. That, Kuvira seemed to be saying, makes losing all of this worth it. 

She could never do that. If she lost her company, if she lost Korra, if she were locked in a room with a piece of paper and nothing to draw with but the bare bone of her finger. She’d wake up, look into a mirror, and crumble into white ash. 

When they finished the sunflower seeds, they went back to the fields together. Kuvira’s supervisor was waiting for them and had angry words with Kuvira for leaving her post during the harvest. Asami intervened on Kuvira’s behalf, and Kuvira, with impeccable manners, calmed down the supervisor further. As Asami made her way to the White Lotus building, she looked back and saw Kuvira standing alone in front of the fields, not doing anything, not looking at anything, yet full of a silent determination to struggle; to exist. 

***

Korra was sitting in the White Lotus building, reading a scroll with a frown. When she saw Asami, she rolled the scroll back up and said, “You’re back!” 

“What did they give you?” Asami said. 

“Old spiritbending scrolls. I’ve been looking for these for a while. Not sure what they’re doing out here, of all places. Jerks.” 

They returned to the car, loaded the scrolls and books in the trunk, and headed back. Two miles from Zaofu, Asami pulled off to a dirt road. She parked the car behind some trees and killed the engine. 

“Do you want to make out in the backseat?” she said. 

“In—in a rental?” This, more than anything Asami had ever proposed, seemed to take Korra aback. 

“Oh, sure. People do it all the time. It’s normal.” 

“Okay. I mean, if you’re down for it, sure.” 

She had suggested it on impulse, and hadn’t considered how uncomfortable it’d be squashing the two of them back there. Neither of them were small. It was hot and getting hotter. Asami’s knees and elbows kept slipping off the edge of the seat or bumping into one of the front seats or tangling with Korra’s. She considered giving up and entering the city, horny but at least unbruised. Once they started kissing, once Korra had her fingers in Asami’s hair and one hot hand against her spine, it was hard to see any of those as compelling reasons to stop. The cramped space reminded her of their quarters in the airship, but without the furtiveness, the need to keep quiet to avoid disturbing the crew and whatever guests Asami was ferrying with her; even so, the open top and the stopped car practically invited closer inspection. This only made Korra, never quiet in bed when she was trying, even less decorous. 

“Give me your fingers,” Korra said. “As much as you think I can take. … but not your whole hand. Wait. Can you even do that?” 

“You’re too cute. Help me get these off.” They pushed down her pants to the knees. She dug her nails into her brown inner thigh, rotated her hand against the soft flesh. Ran two fingers between her labia and smiled as Korra responded: boots flexing, fingers curling, eyes squeezing shut. “As much as I think you can take, that’s what you said?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I said.” Her eyes fluttered shut as Asami slid two in. “That’s good. More, though. I want you—I want you to fuck me until your hand falls off, okay? Give me everything you got.” 

She drove her fingers into Korra under a glaring summer sun, without even putting up the hood. She had no idea whether anyone came down the road, if anyone had seen the Avatar with one arm braced against the door and her head thrown back, as Asami worked her tongue and teeth around her nipple, and fit as much of her fingers as she could into Korra’s willing body. She felt overheated, needy, even more when she heard Korra’s coarse gasps, felt the shallow breaths beneath her mouth, the frantic scramble of legs against her sides, the clenching hand in her hair, the wet pulse of Korra coming around her fingers. 

“Let me get you, just hold on,” Korra said, wiping her face on her arms. She shivered when Asami eased her fingers out of her. She sighed and rolled her shoulders. “You’re too good at this. I feel like I’m never going to catch up.” 

“Don’t be modest,” she said. “You have plenty of skill. Do you need to prove it to yourself? Do you want to make me feel good?” 

That made Korra blush and stammer, and sit up for a kiss, to get her head back on straight. 

There was some difficulty getting into a good position, but they managed it, Asami pulled into Korra’s lap, held there tight enough that it was difficult to get enough air. She was already badly turned on from touching Korra and watching her come. Every cell of her body needed this: the tight grip, the rhythms they fell into, the shock that went through her when Korra’s teeth scraped against her sensitive shoulder blades at the same time as her fingers curled inside her. Thumb on her clit, fingers pushing in, and it was like she didn’t know who she was outside the bounds of where Korra touched her. 

It was a bird call that finally parted them, and the realization that they both had appointments at ten thirty. They shoved themselves back into their clothes, wiped down the car the best they could, and rushed back to the city for a shower. Despite the heat, she had to go to lunch wearing a scarf. 

*** 

There was another hour block of free time between Asami’s last meeting in Zaofu and dinner. After dinner, they’d go to an opera. The next morning, Asami would return to Republic City. 

Asami had originally planned to just enjoy Korra’s company, to be happy they were together, to relax. But the earlier incident in the car had unleashed something in her. She’d see a Water Tribe engineer with his hair in a wolftail, and think about wrapping Korra’s hair around in her fist and bending her over her desk, or she’d catch a glimpse of fountain and blush. 

The only time they had gotten close to each other during the day was early in the afternoon. She had seen Korra coming down the opposite side of the street and persuaded Baatar and his supplier to cross earlier than expected. They greeted each other like normal people, walked on—then doubled back, went into a narrow alleyway, and kissed as hard as they could. Asami groped Korra through the front of her pants, applying pressure. Korra undid her scarf, put her mouth over the hickey, sucked on it hard as she ran her thumb across Asami’s nipples. When Asami withdrew her hand, she bent down and bit her breasts through layers of clothing. 

Then it was over. They couldn’t stay gone for much longer. Her body had buzzed, electric, for hours. 

The second she returned to her quarters in the Beifong compound, she stripped out of her clothes, hung them up, and waited in the bed. Minutes later, Korra arrived with her arms bare and carrying the fur she wore around her waist even in the summer. She locked the door and went to the bed. 

*** 

The opera was done by a visiting Fire Nation company, and one of the few mixed sex companies allowed to perform in front of the Fire Lord. According to the brochure, they had caused a big scandal when they were founded five years ago, for allowing a kiss between a man and a women on stage. The music was known to be avant-garde, the songs sometimes baffling, but held together by surprisingly orthodox acting. 

The story was traditional: a city official fell in love with a man who came from the countryside, except the man was actually a woman; so the woman from the countryside had her brother disguise himself as her, and the city official fell in love with the woman from the countryside yet again, this time in her undisguised state, but was still in love with the brother; the woman’s brother invited their cousin, and the city official fell in love with him, too—and so on forth. The actors delivered their lines lightly and acted with great comedy. During intermission, Huan wept from the beauty of it. 

Having Huan get so weepy about anything led to her trying to actually analyze the opera, and by the end of it, she had a headache and understood less than she did before. She was relieved when the Beifongs and Asami muttered the same thing, that the director’s changes to the fate of the city official and the horse really had taken some of the pathos out of the whole thing, and the flute playing had faltered at several key points, and the effect of this was that what was usually a very moving tribute to the follies of love in the face of bureaucratic impositions became instead a celebration of farms as a place of copulation, mother of the population, O! woe is emigration! 

After the opera, the Beifongs held a party at their compound, inviting the other opera-goers and the opera company. She joined Asami in a corner of the room with some business people she had met during the day, not just to feel her hand on her back or her shoulder, but to watch her talk and listen to her laugh. When Asami was doing business, she flowed in and out of conversations with genuine sincerity; she smiled, she laughed, she deftly navigated through traps Korra would have jumped straight into without a second thought. Her great beauty was consciously toned down, her natural warmth evident only in her words and her kind smiles. She was wary of commitment, protective of her resources, and unafraid to press her advantage when it came to naming a price. 

Eventually her attention wandered, and she found herself listening to Suyin and the others going on about the Earth Confederation. They discussed the recent food shortage in Ajito, the way it tried to coerce the other states to selling them rice and grain at a reduced price, the subsequent uprisings in neighboring Jiejiu, the clumsy attempts to suppress the uprisings, the hasty statements made by just about everyone… “Su, it really would have been better to wait to see how this will turn out instead of throwing us over the abyss.” 

Most of Suyin’s group agreed, but a few gave vigorous protest, and one or two nodders switched to frowning seriously when they noticed Korra watching the debate.

“We’re in this together,” Suyin said with her clear, powerful voice. “Remember, everyone in this room unanimously voted to go in.” 

“We voted, but that doesn’t mean we can’t express dissatisfaction.” 

“It’s not a dictatorship. You can say what you want.” 

“Then…” 

Then, a list of complaints. But hardly any of them had to do with Suyin or Zaofu, and almost all of them were pointed straight at Korra. The Avatar was a dictator. The Avatar should be held more accountable for her actions. How had the peace in Aang’s time given way so easily to the wild chaos in this one? No, you can’t say that. After all, the United Republics was a teaming morass of chaos and fighting during Aang’s time, and even today gangsters ruled much of Republic City… And who can forget the infighting in the Fire Nation, the assassination of Water Tribe chieftains, the women’s rebellion in the Middle Rings of Ba Sing Se, the early days of the old queen’s rule? The past was just as civilized and peaceful as our bloody, gut-smeared present. And who can forget what the Avatar has done already. Who would have thought that, in our lifetime, the Air Nation would be resurrected? 

You say that, but, but, can you say this? And on it went. 

Korra at first wanted to barge into the circle and argue with them face-to-face. But gradually she understood that the criticism against her was a way of critiquing Suyin’s decision to join the Confederation, and, even stranger, some of them didn’t recognize her as the Avatar. Was it because she was growing her hair out again? 

When the discussion got louder, she stepped out to the balcony to cool down. Two men were smoking together in a far corner, and not far from them, another pair were engaged in an intimate conversation, their legs occasionally crossing together. Korra settled deep in a corner with a pair of overwatered, big-leafed plants. 

Suyin joined her a few minutes later. 

“What a bunch of stubborn old-fashioned sticks-in-the-mud!” Suyin said. “I love the Wens, but they wouldn’t know progress if it kicked them in the teeth.” 

“I’m just too sensitive,” Korra said with a self-deprecating shrug. 

“When I founded Zaofu, I quickly realized that doing what everyone wanted wasn’t always what was best for the city. You have a vision, Korra, one that not everyone can see or wants to understand. Their hearts are in the right place, but if you were to turn over world affairs to them, they would send the whole thing right off the tracks. They can complain all they want, but history is made by strong leaders, not the people.” 

“Thanks,” Korra said. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“I’ll always have your back, Korra,” Suyin said. They exchanged a hug before Suyin went back inside. 

The smoking couple had started talking to each other in low, flirtatious tones, while the other two had long ago wandered off. Korra stayed out for a while longer. Talking to Suyin about governing only made her more worried about the future of the Confederation, not less. Did Suyin even realize what she sounded like? 

Still, she’d take Suyin over Kuvira and Raiko any day. 

She went back inside. The groups had completely rearranged themselves, and she didn’t bother figuring out who was talking about what. She went straight to Asami, who had been cornered by an elderly man and woman. The man was wearing a monocle, and the women had an artificial flower pinned to her hair. 

“You don’t look a thing like Aang,” the woman said, once Korra inserted herself into the triangle. “We met Avatar Aang a long time ago, didn’t we, dear?” 

“That’s right,” said the man. 

“We thought you’d look more like him. Handsome faces beget handsome souls. Don’t you agree?” 

“Uh, what?”

“I’m going with Korra to get more refreshments,” Asami said. “Would you like anything, Mr. Leung, Ms. Tran?” 

One more glass of plum wine for Mr. Leung, and ice cubes for Ms. Tran. They delivered the beverages, then, pretending they had forgotten to get drinks for themselves, loitered in front of the punch bowl. 

“How long were you talking to them?” Korra said. 

“I got trapped! You were gone for so long and they said they’d keep me company until you came back… They kept asking me if I could feel Avatar Aang’s beard when I kiss you. I was about to go find you. Is everything all right?” 

“Yeah. Glad I could rescue you from those two.” She poured them both some punch, and said, “Su came and said some nice things to me. Do you want to be the one to explain how representative governments work to her, or should I?” 

Asami snorted, nearly spraying fruity alcohol through her nose. “You can do it, thanks. I want to get back to Republic City alive.” 

“It’s not like I know how they work, either!” She’d rather just make sure someone good for the job was in the seat than worry about voting and ballots, but Wu had taken to republics pretty hard, and it was too late to turn back now.

Asami adjusted her hair, and made it so that her ponytail fell over her shoulder. “Do you want to leave?” 

“Are you done talking to everyone already?” 

“I’m not here for them. I’m here for you.” 

A low heat started in her stomach. She took Asami’s hand and kissed it fervently. Asami put her other hand on the crown of Korra’s head and, with firm, steady pressure, slid it down her neck, around to her jaw and cheek. 

But on their way to the exit, they got held up by Yanyan, and from there were swept from one conversation to another, as though by an extremely vengeful invisible hand. Every time they tried to leave, someone would stop them at the door—they had, close to midnight, made it into the hall, only to meet Wing and Wei, who practically kidnapped them up to the roof of the Beifong compound to drink with some off-duty guards. 

There, the guards told them about a play they had seen the night before, a moral and difficult tale about a woman whose lover had been turned into a lizard frog, and was torn between copulating with her transformed lover to strengthen their union, or retaining the purity of her body, even as her spirit suffered. Because they were all very drunk, none of them found it very tragic or serious. She, Wing, and Wei wound up annoying the guards by trying to reenact the divorce scene. 

“Who’s to say that a lizard frog is any more or less noble than a man or a woman?” one supremely intoxicated guard cried, and dripped tears everywhere. It was a while until they calmed him down and got him back home. 

It was past one in the morning when they returned to their room, and they passed a while kissing, then agreed to rest, since Asami’s airship back to Republic City left in the morning. But hours later they were awake again, neither of them tired and both of them too charged to go back to sleep. 

So, at some frightful hour of the night, they went for a walk through the silent streets of Zaofu. 

*** 

They stayed out so long that they were up when the first cafes opened up. They took a table outside and drank hot espressos. Asami’s mind felt clean, stripped, and she felt at peace—but she recognized this as the effects of no sleep and large quantities of alcohol consumed from the night before. 

Korra, never a morning person, squinted at her espresso as though she couldn’t believe coffee could exist. She ordered some things off the morning menu, waving off any concerns that it might spoil her appetite for this morning. 

Asami was on her third espresso and Korra on her second bowl of porridge with salted duck egg when their round table was surrounded by Zaofu guards. 

“There you are!” a guard said. “One of your White Lotus sentries reported you two weren’t in bed. We thought you might have been kidnapped again.” 

“Why did they check bedroom?” Korra said. 

“Oh, no. You’re getting the wrong impression. Your polar bear dog began to whine, and…” 

“Still creepy,” Korra said. “All right. Let me finish this.” 

They were taken back to the Beifong compound in the back of a police car, pressed close together and holding hands. As the car merged onto the main roads, Korra said, “I could go back with you. On the airship.” 

“What about Raiko?” 

“I could jump out the airship as you’re going over Ajito. I miss you so much. I can’t believe… At least it’s only until the summer. Has he even started raising money for the river reversal project?” 

“Nothing since I left. I can still raise capital for it with my contacts.” 

“No. This one has to be on him. It’ll be good for Granny to learn that I can’t snap my fingers and give her what she wants, too.” She leaned her head against Asami’s shoulder. “I can’t believe how tiring it is, being away from you.” 

“It’s the same for me.” She kissed Korra’s hair. She wanted, more than anything, to stay in Zaofu with Korra, to go with her wherever she went—she had been so reckless when she went with Korra to find the new airbenders four years ago, she almost couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t that her feelings had lessened, only that she had become more essential to her company and the city, while Korra had entered the political game on a global scale. But to obliterate that professional self, to make it nothing but ground marble or forest dirt… “You know, I…” 

“Hmm?” she said, sleepy now that she had warm food in her stomach. 

“I’ll tell you when we get there. Get some sleep, okay?” 

“Yeah.” 

The platinum domes she had spent so much time on opened up to the sky as the car weaved its way through the city. The driver was nimble and skilled, but the traffic grew heavy, and there were long minutes where the car idled in the streets surrounded by other cars in the middle of the morning rush. The driver adjusted the rearview mirror so it showed only the city and the sun, and did not intrude on the sleeping couple in the back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading over the last two months. Or ten minutes. Ten minutes is enough to read 37,000 words, right? 
> 
> Ultimately I see this less of a "redemption" story than a "coming to understand one another" one. But either way, it's been a wild ride. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
